
OassILASLS^ 

Pmk . lolb5 




QUEEN VICTORIA. 



ENGLAND 



IN 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



BY 



ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER 

// 

AUTHOR OF "FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "RUSSIA AND 

TURKEY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "FAMILIAR TALKS 

ON SOME OF SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES," "THE CHAIN 

OF ERRORS," "princess AM^LIE," ETC. 




CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
1895 






/ S1 5 



Copyright 

By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

A. D. 1894 

By Transfer 

D. C. Public Library * 

AUG 6 - T934 



NOTE. 

In respect to my " France in the Nineteenth Century," 
and " Russia and Turkey " in the same period, I have some- 
times been reminded by reviewers — most kind to the 
books, however, as readable, amusing, and instructive — 
that I was not an historian working up new material for a 
definite result. 

I readily accept this opinion; I have no desire to arro- 
gate to myself the high title of an historian, though, to a 
certain extent, all history must be compilation. My aim has 
been to throw flashes of light on events which during my 
lifetime have interested the public ; to amuse, and now and 
then instruct, the " general reader." Had I called my work 
"Historical Gossip," as I at first intended, my aim and 
scope in writing it might have been better understood. 

Throughout " France in the Nineteenth Century " there 
are many little personal reminiscences of my life in Paris 
from 1839 to 1842, and again in 1847 ^^^ 1848. I dis- 
guised these in the third person, not wishing to thrust my 
personality upon my readers. In the present volume I have 
done otherwise, and have made use of family and personal 
reminiscences as far as they would serve. 

My grandfather, Captain James Wormeley, being in 1775 
a student at William and Mary College in Virginia, was dis- 
appointed in a love affair, and ran away to England. There, 
by the influence of Bishop Porteus, — then Bishop of Ches- 
ter, and afterwards Bishop of London, — he obtained a cap- 
taincy in the Stafford Regiment, at that time serving as the 
king's body-guard at Windsor. He remained with his regi- 
ment till 1785, when peace had ended our Revolutionary 



IV NOTE, 

War. His regiment was disbanded, and he returned to 
Virginia with his wife, — the lady for whose sake he had 
left his friends and home. 

Twelve years later he was importuned to return to his old 
regiment; his wife had died, and he pined for association 
with his old comrades. Taking his only son, my father, 
Ralph Randolph Wormeley, he went back to England, and 
placed his boy in the British navy. There my father rose 
rapidly. He served all through the wars of Napoleon in 
the Mediterranean, under Sir Robert Calder, Lord St. Vin- 
cent, Lord Exmouth, Sir Charles Cotton, and Lord CoUing- 
wood. He was made a post-captain in 1815, and became a 
rear-admiral in 1849, — just fifty years after he had entered 
the navy. He was one of four American-born EngHsh 
admirals in this century ; Sir Isaac Cofiin, Sir Benjamin 
Hallowell, and Sir Jahleel Brenton being the others. 

In 1820 my father sought a wife in New England, Miss 
Caroline Preble, niece of Commodore Edward Preble, one 
of the founders of the American navy. Their children were 
all brought up with heads and hearts full of American tra- 
ditions. 

This little explanation seemed necessary to make clear to 
the reader a few things in my narrative, which I hope may 
be as kindly received as its predecessors. 

E. W. L. 

Howard County, Maryland, 
September, 1894. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Year 1822. — The Family of George III. 9 
II. George IV. — Mrs. Fitzherbert. — Princess 

Charlotte 45 

III. Lord Castlereagh. — Mr. Canning. — The 

Duke of Wellington 73 

IV. The Reform Bill. — Lord Althorp. — Lord 

Brougham. — William Cobbett ... 94 
V. The Accession and Coronation of Queen 

Victoria. — Lord Melbourne .... 124 
VI. Marriage of Queen Victoria.— O'Connell 

and Ireland 145 

VII. The Cabul Massacre 167 

VIII. Ten Years, ^- 1841-1851 200 

IX. The Great Exhibition. — Sir Robert Peel. 
— The Duke of Wellington. — Baron 

Stockmar 227 

X. The Indian Mutiny . 254 

XI. The Indian Mutiny {Contimced) 284 

Xll. Death of the Prince Consort 317 

XIII. Lord Beaconsfield 343 

XIV. The Second Cabul Massacre 373 

XV. Mr. Gladstone 387 

XVI. Queen Victoria's Jubilee and Her Family 411 

INDEX 445 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Queen Victoria Frontispiece 

King George IV To face page 46 

Mrs. Fitzherbert 52 

Princess Charlotte 70 

George Canning 80 

Duke of Wellington 90 

King William IV 102 

Queen Victoria in her Coronation Robes . . . 124 

Lord Melbourne 132 

Lady Caroline Lamb , . 138 

Duke of Kent 142 

Duchess of Kent 146 

Prince Albert, at the time of his Marriage . . 154 

General Sir Henry Havelock 192 

Sir Robert Peel 238 

Sir John Lawrence 264 

Sir Colin Campbell (Lord Clyde) 282 

Sir James Outram 302 

Princess Alice 332 

Lord Beaconsfield 360 

William E. Gladstone 388 

Princess Royal (afterwards Empress of Germany) 416 
Crown Prince Frederick (afterwards Emperor 

OF Germany) •. , 422 

Prince of Wales 426 

Princess of Wales 430 

Duke of York 434 

Duchess of York 438 



ENGLAND 



IN 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE YEAR 1 82 2. — THE FAMILY OF GEORGE IH. 

'T^HE Marquis of Londonderry, better known to the 
-'- world by his title of Lord Castlereagh, had been 
prominent in English politics for twenty-five years. He 
had persistently opposed all liberal advancement, all 
progressive opinions. He was succeeded in his office of 
Foreign Secretary by Mr. Canning, under whose guiding 
influence the cabinet of Lord Liverpool seemed to adopt, 
in foreign affairs at least, an entirely different policy. 

I was born in the summer of 1822, exactly as it were on 
the summit of the Great Political Divide, the old policy of 
repression going out, and the new policy of progress com- 
ing in, which has prevailed in England from 1822 up to 
this time. 

I came into a world governed on High Tory princi- 
ples, but with all kinds of radicalism, and sympathy for the 
late French Revolution, seething beneath the surface of 
society. 

Poor George TH. had died in 1820, after nine years 
of hopeless insanity, during which the Prince of Wales 
had been Prince Regent of his kingdoms. Mr. Pitt, who 
had been Prime Minister at the beginning of the century, 
resigned office in 1801, but returned to it in 1804, when, 



10 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

but for the opposition of the King, his old rival, Mr. Fox, 
would have formed part of his ministry. Pitt died in Jan- 
uary, 1806, and was succeeded by the ministry of All the 
Talents, in which Mr. Fox was Foreign Secretary. Mr. 
Fox on coming into office was forced to adopt his prede- 
cessor's policy, and to continue the war with Napoleon 
Bonaparte. He died, however, in 1806. A few months 
later, Mr. Canning became Foreign Secretary. In 1809, 
having unhappily quarrelled with Lord Castlereagh, then 
Minister of War in the same cabinet, whom he accused 
of tardiness in supporting English generals in the Pen- 
insular War, a celebrated duel took place, after which 
both combatants resigned their cabinet positions. Lord 
Castlereagh resumed office shortly after, but Canning, re- 
fusing to sei-ve in the same ministry, would only accept, 
six years later, the office of President of the Board of 
Control. This he resigned in 1820, at the time of the 
Queen's trial ; but on Lord Castlereagh's death, in August, 
1822, he was again made Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and 
at once committed England to a liberal and enlightened 
foreign policy. " No," he said, when invited by the Holy 
Alhance to crush the movement for constitutional govern- 
ment in Spain, " England can't help at that game. We '11 
maintain the parcelling out of Europe by the Treaty of 
Vienna, though we don't half like it ; but we hold every 
nation to be free to do as it likes within its own boun- 
daries, and when we please we will resist any attack on 
this freedom." 

In France, in 1822, the close of Louis XVIII. 's life 
was made uneasy by the persistent efforts of the emigre 
nobility to restore the old regi7ne in France. Prussia, but 
for the assistance she had afforded the Allied Powers in 
their struggle with Napoleon, would have been but of small 
account in the family of nations. Italy, which had favored 
Napoleon, was punished by being placed, directly or indi- 
rectly, under the dominion of the Austrians. Russia was 
under the Emperor Alexander, who was restrained by a 
conscientious adherence to what he considered the prin- 



THE FAMIL Y OF GEORGE III. \ \ 

ciples of the Holy Alliance from taking advantage of an 
opportunity offered him of acquiring supreme influence, if 
not absolute dominion, in Constantinople as the champion 
and protector of the revolted Greeks. Spain, under a weak 
and hated sovereign, King Ferdinand, was incurring the 
enmity of the Powers who composed the Holy Alliance, by 
making frantic efforts to secure a constitution, and, a year 
later (1823), was to be invaded by French troops, in order 
to check her tendencies towards liberalism. 

England when I was born had made very little material 
progress since the age of Queen Elizabeth. It prided itself, 
indeed, on its macadamized roads, its canal-boats, and its 
fast stage-coaches, and steamboats were beginning to be 
used on Scotch and English rivers ; but in 1822 the steam- 
boats in Great Britain numbered only a hundred and twenty- 
three, and these dared not venture on the rough waters of 
the ocean. 

Large cities were beginning to be lighted with gas. The 
discovery of its illuminating powers was very recent, and 
the smell was too offensive to allow of its introduction into 
private houses. Boston, one of the earliest American cities 
to introduce it into its streets, did not adopt it till 1828. 

In 1822 Ohio represented our Far West. A quarter of 
a century earlier, Indians had tortured white men to death 
on the banks of the Miami River. 

Gutta-percha was a substance not yet applied to common 
uses. India-rubber overshoes were made for sale by Indians, 
who ran the sap into rough clay moulds. Stationers kept 
rubber shoes in those days to cut up for school children 
who wanted to buy little bits of India-rubber to obliterate 
pencil- marks. Elastic was not; china buttons were not. 
Shirt-buttons looked like Queen Mab's chariot-wheels, tiny 
constructions made of thread and wire. Our nurse lighted 
our nursery fire with tinder-box, flint, and steel. Innocu- 
lation had but recently given place to vaccination ; and 
many faces pitted all over from small-pox might be met in 
any city in half-an-hour's walk through the streets. In 
common surgical practice there were no alleviations to pain. 



12 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

In the summer of 1815 my father crossed the ocean on a 
ship that had on board the New York dentist, Dr. Parmlee, 
who had been to Paris to learn how to make artificial teeth. 
Before that time, if any man (Uke General Washington) 
wanted a new set of teeth, he had to reconcile himself to 
adopting those of a dead man. 

On the other hand, there were giants (Sti ' the earth in 
those days in statesmanship and literature. Sir Walter Scott 
was bravely producing Waverley novels as fast as pen could 
write them, in his grand struggle against debt, prompted by 
his keen dread of mercantile dishonor. Byron in 1822 was 
in Venice, and had just published " Cain," as a defiance to 
steady-going humanity; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, 
Lamb, Campbell, De Quincy, and Professor Wilson were 
in their noontide glory. 

On the Continent, great authors had not yet shown them- 
selves. The turbid waters of revolution had hardly subsided 
enough to let them rise. Goethe, indeed, was living, though, 
as a writer, he belongs rather to the last years of the eight- 
eenth century. Although America had Washington Irving, 
her literature was as yet only an annex to that of the mother- 
country. She raised Httle cotton ; she hardly manufactured 
any cotton cloth; she printed none. Power-looms had, 
even in England, not entirely superseded the ancient hand- 
looms, on which weavers in their own cottages wove their 
webs. Workmen were bitterly opposed to the introduction 
of machinery, not foreseeing that the increase of produc- 
tion would give employment to hundreds where one would 
have got a living under the old system. How far large 
factories, with their armies of working-men and working- 
women, would be conducive to morality, breaking as they 
do into the home life of the working-classes, was a matter 
that in those days did not trouble the public conscience 
at all. 

Postage was a very heavy tax on those who could least 
afford to pay for letters ; for the better class of society 
people in England avoided postage, through their ac- 
quaintance with peers or members of Parliament ; and the 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 1 3 

franking privilege afforded those gentlemen a cheap and 
easy way of gratifying constituents, and bestowing favors 
upon friends. 

In 1822, High Churchism, as we know it now, or as it 
was in the days of Laud, was out of date in England. 
Wesley and his followers, half a century earlier, had run 
a furrow, as it were, over English soil, whence had started 
new hfe into the English Church, called Evangelicalism. 
The clergy were divided into high and dry divines of 
the old solid school, and the zealous, enthusiastic, rash, 
and somewhat contracted Evangelicals, who claimed a 
monoply of " Gospel teaching." Among the lay leaders 
of the Evangelical party were Zachary Macaulay (father 
of the statesman, poet, and historian). Lord Ashley, 
of whom I shall have more to say hereafter, and Mr. 
Wilberforce. 

Bishops in England always wore wigs, as well as knee- 
breeches, black silk stockings, shovel hats, and the episco- 
pal apron ; and when a young bishop with a fine head of 
hair was persuaded by his wife to request the Prince Regent's 
permission to appear at court without his wig, many persons 
— especially the Duke of Cumberland — predicted from 
such an innovation the downfall of the Church, — much 
as the Court Chamberlain of Louis XVL predicted the over- 
throw of monarchy when he saw shoe-strings instead of 
buckles in M. Roland's shoes. 

There wis no system of government education at that 
time in England. The education of the poor was the work 
of private charity. There was a Poor Law, which obliged 
ratepayers to support paupers ; and sometimes the poor- 
rate became so grievous that it swallowed up the profits of 
the farmer and made him poor. He had to pay, besides 
tithes and church-rates (the latter for keeping church prop- 
erty in order), window tax for every window, taxes on his 
horses if above the size of ponies, taxes on his cart-wheels, 
taxes on malt, taxes on silver plate, if he had any, taxes on 
hair-powder, if he wore it, taxes on property, if he inherited 
it, and taxes on every bill he paid, for no receipt for any sum 



14 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

above ;Q\o was legally valid, unless it were written upon 
stamped paper. 

Sydney Smith's celebrated denunciation of taxation at 
that period (which my father made me learn by heart when 
I was seven years old) was no exaggeration. 

"We have," he says, "taxes upon every article thai enters 
into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot ; 
taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to feel, smell, or 
taste ; taxes on everything in the earth, or in the waters under 
the earth ; on everything that comes from abroad or that is 
grown at home ; taxes on the raw material ; taxes on every 
value that is added to it by the industry of man ; taxes on the 
sauce which pampers man's appetite, and on the drug which 
restores him to health ; on the ermine which covers the judge, 
and the rope that hangs the criminal ; on the poor man's salt, 
and the rich man's spice ; on the brass nails of the coffin, and 
the ribbons of the bride; — on bed and board — couchant or 
levant — we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top; 
the beardless youth manages a taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, 
on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medi- 
cine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon which has paid 
fifteen per. cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which 
has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an 
apothecary who has paid a license of one hundred pounds for 
the privilege of presiding at his death-bed. His whole prop- 
erty is then taxed from two to twenty per cent. Besides the 
probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chan- 
cel ; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, 
and he is gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more." 

This excessive taxation was mainly the result of the vast 
efforts made by England in her wars with Napoleon. Many 
persons beheved (like Lord Holland) that Napoleon might 
probably have been quiet, had he been let alone, and con- 
sidered the wars against him as undertaken solely in the 
interest of kings and of the aristocracy. As time develops 
more and more the inner history of Napoleon's career, it 
may be doubted whether he ever could or would have 
adopted the motto of his nephew, "The Empire is peace," 
for more than a few years at a time. There was deep 
discontent in England from 1818 to 1822, which Lord 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 15 

Castlereagh put down with a firm hand. His domestic 
government was stern, rigid, and persecuting. His foreign 
policy appeared to countenance every encroachment on 
the rights of nations attempted by the sovereigns of Europe. 
He shot himself in August, 1822, and popular hatred dis- 
turbed his funeral ceremonies as he was laid to his last rest 
in Westminster Abbey. 

In our own day we sometimes talk of being tired of 
Dickens's maudlin sympathies and sentimentalities ; but to 
estimate what the world was before the days of Dickens we 
must look back to the state of public sentiment upon the 
subjects on which he wrote, in my earlier days. 

Towards the close of the last century a son of Lord Mon- 
tagu had been stolen, sold to a sweep-master, and used as a 
chimney-sweep. Being sent to sweep the chimneys in his 
father's house, he entered his mother's chamber, and recog- 
nized his surroundings. This led to his being restored to 
his family ; and in grateful remembrance of his deliverance 
from suffering he gave, as long as he lived, an annual feast 
to all the London chimney-sweeps upon the ist of May. 
On his death, Mr. James White (Charles Lamb's friend) 
undertook to continue the festival ; but it was the sole gala 
day in the year for these unhappy boys. Such horrors 
as they sulTered do not exist now, either in chimneys, or in 
factories, or workhouses, or Yorkshire schools ; and this 
is largely because Dickens has turned the full light of pub- 
lic sympathy upon the world's dark places of cruelty. 

Sydney Smith says, — 

"An excellent and well-managed dinner is a most pleasing 
occurrence, and a geat triumph of civilized life. It is not only 
the descending morsel and the enveloping sauce, but the rank, 
wealth, beauty, and wit which savors the meats, the learned 
management of light and heat, the silent and rapid services of 
the attendants, the smiling, sedulous host proffering gusts and 
relishes, the exotic bottles, the embossed plate, the pleasant 
remarks, the handsome dresses, the cunning artifices in fruit 
and farina; — the hour of dinner, in short, includes everything 
of sensual and intellectual gratification which a great nation 
glories in producing. In the midst of all this, who knows that 



1 6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the kitchen chimney caught fire half-an-hour before dinner, and 
that a poor little wretch of six or seven years old was sent up 
in the midst of the flames to put it out ! There is a positive 
prohibition of sending boys up a chimney in a blaze; but what 
matter Acts of Parliament where the pleasures of genteel people 
are concerned ? — or what is a toasted child, compared to the ago- 
nies of the mistress of the house with a deranged dinner?" 

He adds further : — 

" When these boys outgrow the power of going up a chim- 
ney, they are fit for nothing else. The miseries that they have 
sufi'ered lead to nothing ; they are not only enormous, but 
unprofitable. Having suffered in infancy every misery that can 
be suffered, they are then cast out to rob and thieve, and are 
given up to the law." 

I have spoken only of the chimney-sweeps, but the mis- 
eries suffered by young children in mines and factories were 
as great, if not so brutal ; and in this connection I may say 
a few words about a great and good man who came into 
Parliament at this period. He was born Lord Ashley, he 
became the Earl of Shaftesbury. He by no means belonged 
to a pious or exemplary family. His reHgious impressions 
were taken from a good old nurse who died when he was 
seven years old. " The recollection of what she said and 
did and taught," he has remarked, " even to a prayer that I 
now constantly use, is as vivid as in the old days when I 
heard her. I must trace, under God, very much, perhaps 
all, of the duties of my later life to her precepts and her 
prayers." 

The "duties" he thus speaks of were undertaken to pro- 
mote love to God and goodwill towards men, especially 
towards little children. I have heard him speak upon such 
subjects at public meetings in Exeter Hall. He was a tall, 
fair-haired, slender, eager-looking man, careless in dress, 
but fervent in spirit. The House of Commons from 1822 
to 1826 was full of great orators, — Canning, who died in 
1827; Brougham, versatile, brilliant, and omniscient; Peel, 
the great debater ; Huskisson, the master of facts ; Wilber- 
force, with all the eloquence of conviction and persuasion. 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. ly 

What Wilberforce had done towards emancipating blacks, 
Lord Ashley set himself to do for factory children. 

Factories in 1822 were a new invention. Up to the last 
quarter of the eighteenth century, linen, stockings, and 
woollen cloth had been, as I have said, woven in hand- 
looms by weavers who, like Silas Marner, dwelt in their 
own cottages. Their webs of linen were laid to bleach 
upon the grass, or spread upon the hedges. The pun- 
ishment was death for the Autolycus who filched them in 
the gloaming. 

Edward Cartwright about 1785 invented the power-loom. 
This led almost immediately to great industry in the manu- 
facture of cotton cloth. Factories were established, modern 
competition began ; and when hard times arrived, manu- 
facturers, anxious to produce cheap goods, threw men out 
of employment, and took on women, and children of tender 
age, to tend their looms. Then, too, in the year 1825 there 
came in England a " commercial crisis." Banks suspended 
payment in all directions, and as the notes of country banks 
circulated almost exclusively in the communities around 
them, ruin was wide- spread in many country towns. 

The great reform with which Lord Ashley's name is asso- 
ciated was his protest against employing child-labor in the 
mills. So great was the new demand for this cheap labor 
that London guardians of the poor were willing to supply 
small pauper boys and girls out of their workhouses to mill- 
owners, and despatched them by the bargeful to manufac- 
turing towns. These friendless creatures, overworked and 
ill-treated, died rapidly, or became lifelong cripples. 

" The factories were filled with women and children working 
long weary hours in a polluted atmosphere, standing all day 
on their feet at their monotonous labor. Under this cheap labor 
system a curious inversion of the rules of life took place. Wo- 
men and children superseded men in the factories, and the 
domestic concerns of the family were attended to by shiftless 
men, or, mother, and father too, lived on the killing labor of 
their little children, to the utter destruction of parental affection^, 
and of the last remnants of self-respect." 

2 



1 8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Heartbreaking stories were publislied, in what are called 
Blue Books, — /. e., reports of Parliamentary Commissions, 
— about children so weary from their work that the most 
inhuman devices were resorted to by their mothers to 
rouse them in the mornings. 

Southey, under date of 1833, wrote of Lord Ashley and 
the child-labor system : — 

" The slave trade is nothing to it. . . . Once more I say, 
' Cry aloud, and spare not.' These are not times to be silent. 
Lord Ashley has taken up the Factory Question with all his 
heart, and with a deep religious sense of duty. If we are to be 
saved, it will be — I do not say by such men, but for the sake 
of such men as he is." 

I will not dwell on Lord Ashley's further efforts on behalf 
of children made to work in coal-mines. In South Stafford- 
shire, according to his speech in Parhament, it was common 
for children to begin work at seven years old. " In the 
West Riding of Yorkshire," he said, "it is not unusual for 
infants even of five years old to be sent to the pits. Near 
Oldham, children are worked as low as four years old, and 
in the small collieries towards the hills, some are so young 
that they are brought to work in their bed-gowns." This 
"work" was dragging sledge-tubs, on all fours, through 
tunnels too low and narrow to admit grown persons. The 
child had a girdle fixed about its waist, to which the sledge- 
tub was made fast by a chain. 

It took nearly twenty years from the first agitation of this 
subject before these abuses were effectually remedied by Act 
of Parliament. The greatest struggle was to obtain a law 
permitting only ten hours' work for women and children. 
Miss Barrett's noble poem, " The Cry of the Children," is 
said to have had a powerful influence on the result. 

At this time there was another noble work, taken up 
quietly and carried on successfully, by a woman whose name 
will be handed down to posterity as that of a " mother in 
Israel." 

Elizabeth Fry was a Miss Gurney, one of the rich and 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 19 

influential Quakers of that name, — a family whose happi- 
ness it still is to do good. 

Her mother died when she was twelve years old, and her 
father, self-absorbed, paid little heed to the seven lovely 
daughters who, on his country place near Norwich, were 
growing up around him. 

Elizabeth was the gayest of the band. She had those 
bounding high spirits which, overpowering in youth, are 
sometimes the salt that keeps men and women fresh into 
old age. A very un- Quaker-like young lady she must have 
been, doting on dancing, charmed with her own powers of 
enchanting gentlemen, quick, imaginative, eager for excite- 
ment, and admired and beloved wherever she appeared. 

" How amazing it must have seemed in after-life," writes 
one of her biographers, " to the calm, serene, holy-minded 
woman, invincible to the flatteries of courtiers, the friend- 
ship of kings and emperors, the tears of empresses, the 
shouts and blessings of excited crowds, unmoved, save to 
deepest humility, by all the homage, the adulation, the al- 
most adoration she met with when her name was ringing 
throughout Europe, to recall how in her butterfly youth the 
fripperies of a ball-room could have been ' too much ' for 
her, and singing at a village concert might, she feared, ' be 
a snare.' " 

When about eighteen she was suddenly startled out of her 
gay carelessness by a sermon heard at a Quaker meeting ; 
and by degrees she came to the fixed resolve of becoming 
what her sect called " a plain " Quaker. Not long after her 
adoption of the Quaker speech and dress, she married 
Joseph Fry, a young man of a family far stricter than the 
Gurneys, and went to lead the life of a London merchant's 
wife in the heart of the City. 

It is a mystery to many not connected with the Society of 
Friends how ladies of that Society contrive to do the work 
they do in furtherance of schemes of benevolence outside 
of their own homes, and yet maintain their domestic estab- 
lishments in perfect order and dignity. We account for it 
on the supposition that Quaker domestic establishments have 



20 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

their wheels so well greased by wealth, discipline, and kind- 
liness that all things run on smoothly, even in the absence of 
the guiding hand. 

At first Elizabeth wrote of herself, " My time appears to 
be spent to little more purpose than eating, drinking, sleep- 
ing, and clothing myself." But she had at all times a house 
full of company, and her large family of children came in 
rapid succession. Moreover, she suffered greatly from neu- 
ralgia, or, as she, in her ignorance of our modern long word, 
calls it, " from toothache." But by chance one day she paid 
a visit with a friend to the great prison at Newgate. 

In four rooms, not over large, they found crowded three 
hundred women, many of them having with them their 
children, some tried, and others untried, with only one man 
and one woman to take charge of them by night and day. 
Though military sentinels were posted on the roof, such was 
the prevailing lawlessness among these women that the 
Governor of the Prison entered that department with re- 
luctance, and advised the ladies to lay aside their watches 
before going in. 

Mrs. Fry's heart was touched. She sent the miserable 
creatures clothes ; but four years passed before she entered 
on the work with which her name is associated. It was in 
the midst of the bitter winter of 1816, when the Thames 
was frozen over, and a fire kindled on the ice roasted an ox 
whole, that Mrs. Fry, left alone at her own desire with these 
women, knelt among them and prayed for their little chil- 
dren, — those half- naked and half-starved little children who 
stood around her. Then, having won the women's sym- 
pathy, she proposed to open a school for these little ones. 
One of the women was chosen superintendent ; and thus 
began that movement which has led to the astonishing ame- 
lioration of prison life all over the world. 

Here is a description of the Women's Department in 
Newgate as Mrs. Fry found it, written by one of her 
friends : — 

" The railing was crowded with half-naked women struggling 
together for the front situation with the most boisterous violence, 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 21 

and begging with the utmost vociferation. I felt as if I were 
going into a den of wild beasts, and shuddered when the door 
closed upon me." 

In a fortnight a great change, at least in outward appear- 
ance, had come over the wards. The most depraved had 
recovered some self-respect. 

In those days the offences for which people were hanged 
were very numerous. Forgery, passing counterfeit money, 
and even some kinds of petty theft, were capital crimes. 
One terrible duty was undertaken by Mrs. Fry, — that of 
seeing, advising, and comforting condemned prisoners ; and 
her stories of these poor creatures, some of whom went out 
of their minds as they contemplated the horrors of their 
execution, are harrowing. 

One woman, for having passed counterfeit notes received 
from her lover (not knowing that they were counterfeited), 
was, in 1818, condemned to the gallows. Mrs. Fry exerted 
herself to obtain a pardon for her. In vain the Duke of 
Gloucester, stupid but kindly, used his influence with the 
Prime Minister ; the poor woman was executed. Her fate 
led to Mrs. Fry's introduction to the old Queen Charlotte, 
who was paying a state visit to the Lord Mayor. Hearing 
that Mrs. Fry was in the Mansion House (whither she had 
come to make interest on behalf of this poor woriian), the 
Queen desired to see her. "A murmur of applause," says 
a spectator, " ran through all the assemblage as the Queen 
took Mrs. Fry by the hand. The murmur was followed by 
a clapping and a shout, which was taken up by the multitude 
without, till it died away in the distance." 

This visit to the Lord Mayor was Queen Charlotte's last 
appearance in public. She caught cold on this occasion, 
and died not very long after. 

Soon Mrs. Fry began to be consulted even by foreign 
nations as to the management of prisons. In spite of her 
numerous children, she undertook many journeys of benevo- 
lence, always accompanied by her brother, Joseph John 
Gurney, who in such matters went with her heart and 
hand. 



22 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

During a great part of her life she was very rich ; but in 
her later days sorrows, domestic and pecuniary, came upon 
her. Her husband's business house was involved by the 
failure of other houses, and she had to move into a cottage, 
giving up her beautiful home. It also grieved her that her 
children all married out of the Quaker connection. Her 
eldest grandchild was born on the same day as her own 
youngest child. 

In her earlier days she was frequently sent for by the 
Duchess of Kent to visit the little Princess Victoria, whom 
she describes as " a sweet, lovely, hopeful child ; " and, later, 
she records long conversations on . prison disciphne with 
Prince Albert. 

The King of Prussia, when he visited England in 1842 
for the christening of the Prince of Wales, insisted upon 
. taking an informal luncheon at her cottage. On this occasion 
she presented to him eight daughters and daughters-in-law, 
seven sons and sons-in law, and twenty-five grandchildren. 
" Her life," says Mrs. Oliphant, " stands nearly alone in the 
boundless and almost uninterrupted success which attended 
every effort." 

Her end was gradual and peaceful. The naturally frail 
tenement failed, worn out by ceaseless exertions, at the age 
of sixty- five. She died at Ramsgate, October, 1845. I'^ 
the garden of a cottage where she passed the last years of 
her life, a Memorial Church has been erected, the corner- 
stone of which was laid by Princess Louise. 

"The key to her whole character," says Mrs. Oliphant, 
" may be found in these words, written for her sister by 
her own pen : ' My dear Rachel, I can say one thing, since 
my heart was touched at seventeen, I believe I have 
never awakened from sleep, in sickness or in health, by 
night or by day, without my first thought being how I may 
best serve my Maker.' " Hers was the charity of the 
Christian, rather than the narrower zeal so frequent with 
philanthropists. 

Such was in part the state of things when I came into the 
world. With Lord Castlereagh's death, and the resumption 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 23 

of power by a ministry that included Mr. Canning, a change 
came over England. 

In a world such as I have endeavored to describe, the 
personal history, predilections, and domestic conduct of the 
royal family were of very much more publis importance than 
are the character and conduct of Queen Victoria's sons. 
The influence of the court filtered down, as it were, through 
all classes of the people. 

George III., when a very young man, came to the throne 
in 1760. He was son of that Frederic Prince of Wales 
whose name seems to be held in remembrance only in this 
country. Fredericksburg, Frederick County, Frederick, and 
Fredericton were all called after this Prince Fred, on whom 
an epitaph was written by court wits ; and as far as he is 
remembered at all, it is confirmed by posterity : — 

" Here lies Fred, 
Who was alive, and is dead. 
Had it been his father, 
I had rather. 

Had it been his mother, — 
Better than another. 
Had it been his sister, 
No one would have missed her. 
But as it is Fred, 
Who was alive, and is dead, 
There 's no more to be said ! " 

George III. enjoys the distinction of being the most relig- 
ious, virtuous, and respectable man of his family. " Farmer 
George " his people called him, and with good reason ; for, 
under the signatures of Joseph Trenchard and Ralph Atkin- 
son, he wrote several excellent letters to an agricultural 
paper concerning new methods of ploughing, and the re- 
claiming of waste lands. He owed his popularity, not only 
to his real goodness of heart and to a certain blustering 
bonJiomie, but to the circumstance that he was an English- 
man, and the English had not had a sovereign both born 
and educated on English soil since the days of Queen 
Elizabeth. 

In early life he had been several times in love. One of 



24 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

his loves was Hannah Lightfoot, a pretty Quakeress ; an- 
other, a beautiful countess, of whom he talked much in his 
insanity ; another. Lady Sarah Lennox, daughter of the Duke 
of Richmond. This preference was nipped, however, in the 
bud by his mother and his ministers. Lady Sarah married 
Sir Charles Bunbury, — a relative of the eccentric English- 
man, General Charles Lee, who was the rival of Washington, 
— and on Sir Charles Bunbury' s death gave her hand to one 
of the members of the brilliant family of Napier, whose 
representatives during the last century have done their 
country so much honor. George III. was married to a 
princess of seventeen, Charlotte, daughter of the Grand 
Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. It has been the fashion to 
describe her as ugly, narrow-minded, ignorant, and close- 
fisted, and she certainly was not popular among the cour- 
tiers that surrounded her. But she says of herself, " I 
have found that the advice of the dear King, — of being 
uniformly polite to everybody, of doing nothing in the 
spirit of party, and of adhering closely to my husband's 
family, — has been my surest guidance." This advice was 
accompanied, on her young husband's part, by the strong- 
est desire to keep his young wife to himself, to form her, to 
convert her, as it were, into his' own reflection. He read 
aloud to her daily, while she was engaged in sewing. He 
discouraged all intimacies, even with his own family. She 
maintained German court punctilio in matters of etiquette ; 
but her intense sense of decorum and propriety gave tone 
to the English court and aristocracy for more than a 
generation. 

My grandfather. Captain James Wormeley, who served 
many years in the Stafford Regiment (then the King's body- 
guard) at Windsor, had the most tender recollections of 
the King. I never but once saw him angry with his son, 
my father, and that was when I was about seven years old, 
and he had picked up in the nursery a volume of Peter 
Parley's Tales about Europe, — just published, — in which 
King George and his insanity were spoken of with levity. 
What my grandfather then said made a life-long impression 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 2$ 

upon me ; I have never been able to speak otherwise than 
tenderly of George III. 

And, indeed, how piteous a story is that of his sad life ! 
A worthless mother, a narrow education, no natural abilities, 
but strong conscientiousness and a kind heart ; and, above 
all, a large and handsome family, of which every member 
proved a failure. 

Two of his fifteen children died in babyhood. One of 
these he mourned for, saying pathetically in his sorrow : 
" Some would grieve that they had ever had so sweet a child, 
since they were forced to part with him. Such is not my 
case. I am thankful to God for having generously allowed 
me to enjoy such a creature for four years." 

His favorite daughter, the Princess Amelia, died in early 
womanhood, and her father's sorrow for her loss made him 
hopelessly insane. 

My grandfather often spoke of Princess Ameha as one of 
the sweetest children ever born. He would tell of her as he 
used to see her on the Great Terrace at Windsor Castle, 
trotting before her parents in quaint baby-dress, with smiles, 
and pretty nods, and kissings of her hand for every one 
who noticed her. When about fifteen she fell into ill-health. 
It was then she is believed to have written those touching 
lines, "Unthinking, idle, wild, and young," which are asso- 
ciated with her memory. Here is a less well-known prayer 
which after her death was found written on the fly-leaf of 
her prayer-book : — 

" Gracious God, support thy unworthy servant in this time of 
trial. Let not the least murmur escape my lips, nor any senti- 
ment but of the deepest resignation enter my heart. Let me 
make the use thou intendedst of the affliction thou hast laid on 
me. It has convinced me of the vanity and emptiness of all 
things here : let it draw me to thee as my support, and fill 
my heart with pious trust in thee, and in the blessings of a 
redeeming Saviour, as the only consolation of a state of trial. 
Amen." 

A short time before Princess Amelia's death it is be- 
lieved that, in defiance of the Royal Marriage Act, she 



26 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was secretly united to Captain (afterwards General) Fitz- 
roy, an ofificer of her household, a gentleman of the family 
of the Duke of Grafton. At her death she left him all her 
jewels, which, however, he was not suffered to retain. With 
a dying hand she pressed a valuable diamond on the finger 
of her father, and begged him to remember her only with 
affection. 

Queen Charlotte was not a woman with an uncultivated 
mind. Some of her familiar letters, which during the last 
ten years have been given to the world, are playful and very 
charming. They inform us, though we can hardly realize 
the fact, that George III. once played an April-fool trick 
on one of his ministers ; and here is a little poem that 
the Queen sent him, two years after their marriage, in " a 
most elegant Valentine, worked by her own hands." It 
would be impossible to believe that a German lady, who 
never acquired a perfect pronunciation of English, could 
have written it, were it not that there are other little poems 
in existence from the same hand. 

" Genteel is my Damon, engaging his air ; 
His face, like the moon, is both ruddy and fair. 
Soft Love sits enthroned in the beam of his eyes ; 
He 's manly, yet tender •, he 's fond, yet he 's wise. 

" He 's ever good-humored ; he 's generous and gay ; 
His presence can always drive sorrow away. 
No vanity sways him, no folly is seen ; 
But open his temper, and noble his mien. 

" By virtue illumined, his actions appear ; 
His passions are calm, and his reason is clear. 
An affable sweetness attends on his speech ; 
He 's willing to learn, though he 's able to teach. 

" He has promised to love me : his word I '11 believe; 
For his heart is too honest to let him deceive. 
Then blame me, ye fair ones, if justly you can. 
For the picture I 've drawn is exactly the man." 

And, indeed, all this was true, except as to the " noble 
mien," — as true as any eulogy can be expected to be. It 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 2/ 

described George III. in his earlier days, before his dis- 
position had been troubled by incipient insanity. The 
whole story of that insanity is piteous in the extreme. 
From the age of twenty-seven, he had been subject to 
brief attacks of delirium. In 1788 a regency had to be 
appointed. He recovered in six months, but was stricken 
down again in 1801, and subsequently in 1804. In 1810 
he became hopelessly insane, and never recovered. 

" At intervals during his first attacks," says one who was 
about the court at that period, " he still took an occasional 
interest in politics. His perception was good, though 
mixed up with a number of erroneous ideas. His memory 
was tenacious, but his judgment unsettled. The loss of 
royal authority seemed to prey upon his mind. 

" His malady seemed rather to increase than abate up to 
1 814, when, at the time of the visit of the Allied Sovereigns 
to England, he gave indications of returning reason, and 
was made acquainted with the interesting events that had 
recently occurred. The Queen one day found him singing 
a hymn, and accompanying himself on the harpsichord. 
After he had concluded the hymn, he knelt down, prayed 
for his family and for the nation, and earnestly entreated 
for the complete restoration of his mental powers. He 
then burst into tears, and his reason suddenly left him ; but 
he afterwards had occasionally lucid intervals." 

Towards the end of his life he became deaf. His sight 
was already gone. He imbibed the idea that he was dead, 
and said, " I must have a suit of black, in memory of 
George III., for whom I know there is to be a general 
mourning." 

In 181 7 he appeared again to have a slight glimmering 
of reason. His sense of hearing returned, more acute than 
ever, and he could distinguish people by their footsteps. 

"After 1818 he occupied a long suite of rooms, in which 
were placed several pianos and harpsichords. At these he 
would frequently stop during his walks, play a few notes 
from Handel, and then stroll on. He seemed cheerful, 
and would sometimes talk aloud, as if addressing some one ; 



28 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

but his discourse bore only reference to past events, for he 
had no knowledge of recent circumstances, either political 
or domestic. Towards the end of 1819 his appetite began 
to fail him. In January, 1820, it was found impossible to 
keep him warm ; his remaining teeth dropped out, and he 
was almost a skeleton. On January 27, 1820, he was con- 
fined to his bed, and two days later (a few days after the 
death of the Duke of Kent) he died, aged eighty-two years." 

He was the father of nine sons and six daughters ; but he 
had only five grandchildren of legitimate birth. 

Mr. Adams's account of his presentation to the King at 
St. James's Palace, 1785, as the first Minister Plenipotentiary 
of the United States, is familiar to many, but to all it must 
be interesting. 

" I passed," he says, " through the lesser rooms into the King's 
closet. The door was shut, and I was left with His Majestj' 
and the Secretary of State alone. I made the three reverences^ 
one at the door, another about half way up the rooms, and the 
third before the presence, according to the usage estabhshed at 
this and all the courts of Europe, and then addressed myself to 
His Majesty in the following words : ' Sir, the United States 
of America have appointed me their Minister Plenipotentiary to 
Your Majesty, and have directed me to deliver to Your Majesty 
this letter, which contains the evidence of it It is in obedience 
to their express commands that I have the honor to assure 
Your Majesty of their unanimous disposition and desire to cul- 
tivate the most friendly and liberal intercourse between Your 
Majesty's subjects and their citizens, and of their best wishes 
for Your Majesty's health and happiness, and for that of your 
royal family. The appointment of a Minister from the United 
States to Your Majesty's court will form an epoch in the history 
of England and America. I think myself more fortunate than 
all my fellow-citizens in having the distinguished honor to be 
the first to stand in Your Majesty's presence in a diplomatic 
character ; and I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I 
can be instrumental in recommending my country more and 
more to Your Majesty's royal benevolence, and of restoring an 
entire confidence, esteem, and affection — or, in better words, 
the old good-nature and the old good-humor — between people 
who, although separated by an ocean, and under different 
governments, have the same language, a similar religion, and 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 29 

kindred blood. I beg Your Majesty's permission to add that 
although I have sometimes before been intrusted by my country, 
it was never, in my whole life, in a manner so agreeable to my- 
self.' The King listened to every word I said with dignity, it is 
true, but with an apparent emotion. Whether it was the nature 
of the interview, or whether it was my visible agitation, for I felt 
more than I did or could express, that touched him, I cannot 
say ; but he was much affected, and answered me with more 
tremor than I had spoken with, and said, ' Sir, the circum- 
stances of this audience are so extraordinary, and the language 
you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you 
have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must 
say I not only receive with pleasure the assurance of the friendly 
disposition of the United States, but I am very glad their choice 
has fallen on you to be their minister. I wish you, sir, to be- 
lieve — that it may be understood in America — that I have 
done nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself in- 
dispensably bound to do by the duty that I owed to my people. 
I will be very frank with you. I was the last man to conform 
to the separation; but the separation having been made, and 
having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, let 
the connection of language, religion, and blood have their natu- 
ral and full effect.' I dare not say that these were the King's 
precise words, for although his pronunciation is as distinct as I 
ever heard, he hesitated sometimes between his periods, and 
between much of the same periods. He was indeed much 
affected, and I was not less so; but I think all he said to me 
should not be kept secret in America, unless His Majesty or 
his Secretary of State should think proper to report it. 

" The King then asked me whether I came last from P>ance, 
and on my answering in the afifirmative, he, with an air of friend- 
liness, and smiling, or rather laughing, said, 'There is an 
opinion among some people that you are not the most attached 
of all your countrymen to the manners of France.' I was sur- 
prised at this, because I thought it indiscreet, and a descent 
from his dignity. I was a little embarrassed, but determined 
not to deny the truth on one hand, nor have him to infer from it 
my attachment to England on the other. I threw off" as much 
gravity as I could, and assumed an air of gayety and a tone of 
decision as far as was decent, and said, ' That opinion, sir, 
was not mistaken. I must avow to Your Majesty that I have 
no attachment but to my own country.' The King replied, 
quick as lightning: 'An honest man will never have any 
other. ' " 



30 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The sons of George III. were George, Frederic, William 
Henry, Edward, Ernest, Augustus, Adolphus, Octavius, and 
Alfred. The last two died in infancy. His daughters were 
Charlotte, Augusta, Elizabeth, Sophia, Mary, and Amelia. 

Of these princesses it has been truly said " that during 
the course of their long lives, full of trials, dulness, and 
monotony, they showed the same constancy and patience, 
with a display of domestic virtues and amiabihty that is 
truly remarkable. Admirable daughters, tolerant and affec- 
tionate sisters, excellent wives, sagacious and observing, they 
earned the respect and admiration of all, and reflected 
credit on the Queen their mother." 

We have already spoken of the Princess Ameha. Her 
sisters led all of them unhappy lives, ground down by court 
restraints, and made sorrowful by the always uncertain con- 
dition of the King, who was continually trembling on the verge 
of insanity, even when considered in his right mind. None 
married until very late in life, and none had any children. 

Charlotte, the Princess Royal, was well stricken in years 
when a suitor presented himself for her in the Duke of 
Wiirtemberg. He was a very stout, elderly man, so stout 
that he had had to have a curve cut out of his dining-table 
to accommodate his obesity. In early life he had distin- 
guished himself as a soldier, and had become a favorite of 
Frederic the Great, who promoted his marriage with a lady 
of his own house, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Bruns- 
wick and of Augusta, sister of George III. ; she was sister 
to Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV. Of the men 
of this family of Brunswick, it might be said that they were 
all sans peur, but few of the women were sans reproche. The 
Prince and Princess of Wiirtemberg a year or two after 
their marriage went to the Russian court, where Catherine 
II. was then supreme. There the Princess greatly miscon- 
ducted herself, and is supposed to have incurred Catherine's 
enmity by attaching one of that lady's ex-favorites to her train 
of lovers. Her husband returned to Wiirtemberg with his 
children, leaving his wife behind. She was imprisoned by 
Catherine in the fortress of Lode, and soon afterwards her 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE HI. 31 

death was reported, in 1788. Whether she died by violence 
or natural causes, or whether indeed she really died, has 
always been doubtful. Many persons thought her escape 
was effected by one of her lovers, and that she fled with him 
to Italy. George III. made careful inquiry into the circum- 
stances of her death before he permitted his daughter to be 
engaged to the supposed widower, and he appears to have 
been fully satisfied by what was told him. The Princess 
Royal seems to have been glad to escape the restraints of 
her home in England, and not unwillingly married her stout, 
elderly suitor. All accounts say that she led afterwards a 
happy life, devoted to the care of her step-children and her 
step-grandchildren. One of her step-daughters was the 
admirable Princess Catherine, who married Jerome Bona- 
parte much against her will ; but she made him a devoted 
wife, and when, after the downfall of the Bonapartes, she was 
entreated by her father to forsake her husband, her letter of 
refusal is a touching expression of womanly fideUty and of 
a wifely sense of honor. 

The Duke of Wurtemberg was made a king by the Em- 
peror Napoleon as a reward for his adherence to the French 
cause in the war of 1805 with Austria. It is thus that the 
eldest daughter of George III. writes of the way she received, 
for her husband's sake, her own country's national enemy : 

" It was, of course, very painful to me to receive him with 
courtesy, but I had no choice ; the least failure on my part 
might have been a sufficient pretext for depriving my husband 
and his children of this kingdom. It was one of the occasions 
in which it was absolutely necessary de /aire bonne mine d 
mauvais gotit. To me he was always perfectly civil." 

Napoleon said afterwards of another German queen, — 

"She should remember that but for me she would be only 
the daughter of a miserable petty Margrave, and imitate the 
conduct of the Queen of Wurtemberg, daughter of the greatest 
King on earth ! " 

The courteous reception of the Emperor Napoleon must 
indeed have demanded much self-restraint on the part of 
a lady brought up to consider him the Corsican Monster, 



32 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

as was the fashion in England in those days. A few years 
before the interview, she recorded in her journal that she 
had been reading a scurrilous life of him, published to suit 
the popular opinion of his character. 

" The book," she says, " gives a very accurate account of 
the Monster from his childhood. I must tell you what hap- 
pened to me. I was reading to myself, and, my maid was in 
the room, and, being very eager, I called out a propos of one of 
his very malicious acts as a boy, ' Oh, you devil ! ' On which 
she said, ' 1 know what you are reading, — I read some of it 
this morning ; and a more horrid creature never existed.' I 
was then shocked at having called him devil. It was an injus- 
tice to Beelzebub, who was a fallen angel ; for I believe Bona- 
parte to be an indigenous devil ! " 

When the stout King died, in 1 8 1 6, his widow thus writes 
to her family : — 

" I believe never was any one more attached to another 
than I was to the late King. This affection, which during our 
union was the happiness of my life, makes me look forward 
with impatience to the end of my days, when I trust, through 
the mercy of Providence, to be reunited to my husband in a 
better world. The present King behaves very kindly to me, 
and has shown the most dutiful affection to his late father." 

She never returned to England, but died at Louisburg, 
Oct. 6, 1828, made happy by the affection of those whom 
she calls " my dear little grandchildren," and who, she adds, 

" are really worth seeing. Mr. and Mrs. L , who saw 

them last year, will, I am sure, give you a full account of 
these little angels, who they seemed much pleased with." 

The next sister was Princess Augusta. Her intended 
bridegroom was a prince of Denmark; but the marriage 
negotiations came to an end, owing to matrimonial com- 
plications between the reigning Danish King and his wife, 
Caroline Matilda, posthumous daughter of Frederic, Prince 
of Wales, and sister of George III. Princess Augusta 
never married. She died in 1840. Contemporaries spoke 
of her as the most charming princess among those of whom 
one who lived among them and knew them well has 
written, " I really knew not such girls in any rank of life. 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 33 

They are all amiable in their different ways, and they 
are all different." My grandfather's favorite was Princess 
Elizabeth, who had a sweet face, full of goodness and of 
intellect ; but she became immensely stout even in her years 
of early womanhood. She wrote and published a little 
book of verses, illustrating the poems with her own de- 
signs. She was also an enthusiastic collector of old China 
and bric-a-brac. She remained unmarried till 181 8, when 
she was forty- eight years old. Then another stout German 
came to England as her suitor, Philip Augustus, the Land- 
grave of Hesse-Homburg, whose dominions and court were 
the originals of the court of Pumpernickel. 

That the poor princesses, while in England, lived in 
dread of what might happen to them under the regency 
of the Prince of Wales, and were ready to accept any fate 
that might remove them from his authority, may be gathered 
from this letter, written by Princess Elizabeth to Lady Har- 
court, a friend of the family : — 

♦' Think, my beloved Lady Harcourt, how things are changed, 
that I now pray to the Almighty that I may leave this country. 
Turn which way we will, all appears gloom, and melancholy stares 
one full in the face. The prospect we have to look forward to 
in the wife of him who should be our protector in future times, 
is so dreadful that I had rather far choose the deserts of Arabia 
than all the amusements of London or the delights of the coun- 
try in England. Do pray for me, and wish for us all to be gone. 
My much-beloved mother knows a little how sincerely we all 
wish to be gone; but a daughter who loves her as truly as I do 
must feel the indelicacy of speaking too openly on a subject 
which separates us from her; but indeed, indeed, it is most 
necessary. . . . I fear everything, — nearly my own thoughts; 
but I trust in the mercy of God, who will with his mercy guide 
my course, and, what I love almost best in the world, my 
brother. . . . But do get him to wish us all away." 

The Landgrave of Homburg made anything but a favor- 
able impression on society in England. He is described 
by contemporaries as a "gross, corpulent German," as 
"smelling always of tobacco," as "snoring at theatres;" 

3 



34 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and "all wondered at the destiny which could assign so 
charming a princess to such a monster." 

A great-aunt of Princess Elizabeth, the Princess Mary, 
daughter of George II., had married a former Landgrave 
of Hesse-Homburg, and her memory was cherished in the 
tiny principality. 

Mr. Rush wrote home an account of the wedding : — 

" The conduct of the Queen was admirable. This venerable 
personage, the head of a large family, her children then cling- 
ing about her, the female head of a great empire, in the seventy- 
sixth year of her age, went the rounds of the company, speaking 
to all. There was a kindliness in her manner from which time 
had stricken away useless forms. No one did she omit, and 
she wore hanging from her neck a miniature portrait of the 
King. He was absent, scathed by the hand of Heaven ; a 
marriage going on in one of his palaces, he the lonely suffer- 
ing tenant in another. But the portrait was a token superior 
to a crown. It bespoke the affection in which for fifty years 
this royal pair had Hved together. The scene would have 
been one of interest anywhere. May it not be noticeable on 
a throne ?" 

My grandfather used to grieve over the accounts brought 
home by travellers of the poverty of the Landgravine's sur- 
roundings. They told of the bare furnishing of her tall 
old Schloss, and of her lack of the comforts provided in 
England for every middle-class family ; yet she was prob- 
ably happier in her married life than she had been at 
home. She surrounded her old Schloss with an English 
garden. She called it her " dear and blessed home." 
The Landgrave, too, improved under her influence, and 
thus Miss Knight speaks of him in her memoirs : " He 
has noble frankness of character and a patriarchal kindness 
in his family, which, added to his graciousness and his care 
of his subjects, render him worthy of being well beloved. 
He is well educated, very neat in his person, and never 
comes into eompany without changing his dress if he has 
been smoking." 

The Landgravine died in 1840, — the year before the 
gaming-tables were set up in Homburg. 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 35 

Of Princess Sophia I can tell very little. She had 
delicate health. After the deaths of her father and mother 
she had her separate establishment, and lived in retirement 
in the country. It is believed that, like her sister Amelia, 
she had been early married to an officer in her household. 
She died, the last of the Queen's aunts, in 1857. 

Princess Mary, the prettiest of a very handsome family, 
had a sad and romantic history. When she was twenty 
years old she was engaged to her cousin, William, Duke of 
Gloucester. The young people were good-looking, ami- 
able, and exceedingly attached to each other; but their 
engagement was broken by command of George IV., 
because, having no son, and only one daughter, the Prin- 
cess Charlotte, and as, having separated from his wife, he 
was likely to have no more children, it might be desirable 
to marry the little heiress of the English crown to the Duke 
of Gloucester. He was therefore ordered to remain un- 
married until this little lady became old enough to take a 
husband, when, if her family could not find for her a more 
eligible prince, she would have to be married to her elderly 
cousin. The Prince of Orange proposed to Princess Char- 
lotte, and the hopes of her Aunt Mary rose high. But 
Charlotte in the end would have nothing to do with the 
Prince of Orange. How she married Prince Leopold of 
Saxe-Coburg, and how deeply she was attached to him, 
must be the subject of part of another chapter. "As 
Princess Charlotte after her marriage descended the great 
staircase at Carlton House, she was met at the foot of it 
by her aunt, the Princess Mary, with open arms, and a face 
bathed in tears." A few weeks later Princess Mary be- 
came Duchess of Gloucester. For eighteen years she lived 
happily (though childless) with her kindly, unintellectual 
cousin and husband, but she long survived him. She 
died in 1857, the same year as her sister Sophia. The 
Earl of Malmesbury, in his Memoirs, speaks of her as 
"all good-humor and pleasantness." "Her manners," he 
adds, " are perfect, and I never saw or conversed with 
any princess so exactly what she ought to be." 



2,6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Such is the history of George III.'s six daughters, all 
lovely, all amiable, all with marred or manque lives. 
Now we will turn to the seven sons who grew to manhood, 
or rather to six of them, for we will leave aside George, 
Prince of Wales, whose matrimonial history will demand a 
considerable share of our next chapter. 

The sons of George III. may be said to form two groups, 
— the four elder boys, and the three younger. 

The four elder were George, Prince of Wales, Frederick, 
Duke of York, William, Duke of Clarence, and Edward 
Duke of Kent. The others were Ernest, Duke of Cum- 
berland, Augustus, Duke of Sussex, and Adolphus, Duke 
of Cambridge. 

Frederick, Duke of York, was the prince of most talent in 
his family. He was for many years Commander-in-Chief 
of the British Army ; and although the expeditions he com- 
manded in 1793 and 1799 met with little success, he was 
admirable as an organizer and reformer. His manners, too, 
were those of a finished gentleman, and by his affability he 
made himself many friends. On the other hand, he brought 
great scandal on himself and on his family by allowing an 
infamous woman, Mrs. Clarke, to sell to officers promises 
of piromotion, to obtain which she used her influence with 
the Commander-in-Chief. This affair came to light, and 
was investigated by Parliament. 

The Duke of York was always in debt. Mr. Charles 
Greville relates that he and his Duchess were often thankful 
to take loans from their attendants. On one occasion they 
were unable to raise money enough to pay some village 
laborers who were digging a drain. 

My father used to tell a story of the fashionable tailor in 
London in his day, whose bill against the Duke of York for 
personal attire and liveries became so enormous that he was 
seriously embarrassed for lack of payment. His friends 
urged him to take a post-chaise and drive down to Oatlands, 
the Duke's place in the country, state his case, and ask a 
settlement. On his return his advisers crowded round him. 
"Well," cried the tailor, shaking his head, "he seemed so 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 37 

glad to see me, and treated me so like a gentleman, that 
I could not ask him for money." 

When, after the Duke's death, it was proposed to erect a 
column to his memory in Carlton Gardens, a caricaturist in 
"Punch" drew a plan for it, — an enormous file of bills 
strung on a wire, with the Duke's statue on the top. Those 
bills were eventually paid by a grant from Parliament. 

The Duchess of York was Princess Frederica, daughter of 
King Frederick William II. of Prussia. She lived for thirty 
years in retirement in the country, chiefly remarkable for 
her care of forty dogs. We judge from Greville's Memoirs 
that in their later years the pair got what little money they 
could command chiefly by playing cards. The Duchess died 
in 1822, and her husband in January, 1827. His funeral pro- 
cession was kept standing two hours in a damp chapel at 
Windsor on a flagged floor, waiting for George IV. as chief 
mourner. Canning insisted that Lord Eldon, the Chancel- 
lor, should stand on his cocked hat ; and for want of the 
same precaution, took the cold of which he died some 
months after. 

The Duke of York had a very poor opinion of his brother, 
George IV., and did not hesitate to tell his intimates that his 
brother's conduct on some points was so monstrous that he 
could only suppose he was mad. 

When the sad death of Princess Charlotte took place, 
Nov. 5, 181 7, most of her male relations were unmarried. 
My father used to tell how he was standing on Waterloo 
Bridge a week after her death, when three Government 
messengers passed him at a gallop, each bearing an offer of 
marriage from a bachelor royal duke to some princess in 
Germany. The three suitors were the Duke of Clarence, 
the Duke of Kent, and the Duke of Cambridge. 

The first married Adelaide, Princess of Saxe-Meiningen. 
The second married Victoria, Princess of Saxe-Coburg, 
sister of Prince Leopold, and widow of the Duke of Lei- 
ningen, by whom she had had two children, — a son, the 
Prince of Leiningen, and a daughter, Feodora, subsequently 
married to Prince Hohenlohe. The third suitor was the 



38 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

Duke of Cambridge, who married Augusta, daughter of the 
Duke of Hesse-Cassel. 

The Duke of Clarence became afterwards WilHam IV. 
His wife, Queen Adelaide, was a most admirable woman, 
who lived long after his death. They had two children, 
both daughters, who hardly survived their birth. 

Edward, the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III., was 
the ill-treated and neglected member of his family, — at 
least, he considered himself neglected, though several good 
appointments were given him. In his boyhood anything 
wrong that was done by his elder brothers was attributed to 
him. He was considered the member of the family who 
was of small account. He was sent to Germany, as all his 
brothers were (except the Prince of Wales), for military 
instruction, and was then put into the army ; but he was 
kept always with a very small allowance. His father was 
at least partially insane during his early manhood, — which 
was one reason, probably, why the young men were sent 
from England, — and ministers were worried by Prince 
Edward's continual requests for money. The history of his 
lost outfits is both comic and curious. By shipwreck or by 
capture, they were lost one after the other ; and when this 
was the case, the ministry was in no hurry to replace them. 
He held several positions of trust in Nova Scotia and Can- 
ada, where he made warm friends in all classes of society. 
At Halifax are still shown the dilapidated remains of the 
Prince's Lodge, which the Prince quitted in 1800, amid 
the general grief of the inhabitants of the place, with whom 
he was very popular, — "a grief," says Judge Haliburton, 
" enhanced, no doubt, by his high rank as the King's son, to 
say nothing of the lavish expenditure of money for which he 
had for six years been most famous at the Lodge and in 
the town, and for the associations which gathered round 
his every movement, and the prestige which was given to 
society by his presence, all which were to be now lost 
forever." 

His moral character was not above reproach, but he never 
made the scandal of an openly irregular life, like almost all 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 39 

his brothers. Warm-hearted and affectionate, and, justly or 
unjustly, considering himself estranged from his family, his 
life was probably a very far from happy one, and the only 
opportunity afforded him by which he could really have 
distinguished himself led to disaster and disgrace. 

He was sent to Gibraltar as its Military Governor, and 
entered upon his duties with great ardor. The English 
troops there at that period were two wholly disorganized 
regiments. Prince Edward introduced such strict discipline, 
and carried it out so energetically, that complaints in shoals 
were sent home to the English Government, and the soldiers 
broke out into open mutiny. This was suppressed with 
difficulty, and the Prince was recalled to England. He 
was never again trusted with any command of importance, 
but was always treated as the family ne'er-do-weel. It is 
surprising that, under the mortifications he suffered, he did 
not go wholly to the bad. In 18 18 he was required, as a 
matter of state policy, to be married. The Duchess of 
Kent, although, as I have said, she was the mother of two 
children by her first marriage, made it the chief duty of her 
Hfe after her union with the Duke of Kent, and the birth of 
their little daughter, to acquit herself rightly of the respon- 
sibility of training up the presumptive heiress to the English 
throne. 

She and the Duke at the time they expected their child's 
birth were too poor to reside in England. The Duke, indeed, 
was burdened with debts, and his allowance had always 
been small. He wrote to his brother, George IV., entreating 
for money to enable him to come home, that the heir or 
heiress presumptive to the throne of England might be born 
on English soil. No notice was taken of this request. The 
Duchess had come as near as possible to the coast of Eng- 
land, and it is possible that Queen Victoria would have been 
born a Frenchwoman, had not Alderman Wood advanced 
money to the impecunious pair. 

On May 24, 1819, Queen Victoria was born, at Kensing- 
ton Palace. On the following January her father died at 
Sidmouth, after a very short illness, leaving debts which 



40 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

when Queen Victoria came to the throne she at once as- 
sumed, and, setting aside part of her private income every 
year for the purpose, she has long since paid them off 
entirely. Here is a pretty picture of the Duke and his baby 
daughter, written by one who visited them at Kensington 
Palace, just before their removal to the sea-side : — 

" On my rising to take leave, the Duke intimated it was his 
wish that I should see the infant Princess in her crib; adding, 
' As it may be some time before we meet again, I should like you 
to see the child and give her your blessing.' The Duke pre- 
ceded me into the little Princess's room, and on my closing a 
short prayer that as she grew in years she might grow in grace 
and favor both with God and man, nothing could exceed the 
fervor and feeling with which her father responded with an 
emphatic Amen. Then, with no slight emotion, he continued: 
' Don't pray simply that hers may be a brilliant career, and 
exempt from those trials and struggles which have pursued 
her father, but pray that God's blessing may rest on her, that 
it may overshadow her, and that in all her coming years she 
may be guided and guarded by God.'" 

The Duchess of Kent was a sensible, dignified, judicious 
woman, who lived in retirement and devoted herself to her 
child. The little Princess Victoria was rarely allowed to 
appear in public, and was almost unknown to her own 
family. Her uncle Leopold was one of her guardians. 
He and her mother had probably from her infancy selected 
her future husband, — her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha, — and this young Prince, under King 
Leopold's advice and superintendence, was put in training 
at a very early age for his future important position. 

King William IV. exceedingly disliked the Duchess of 
Kent, and on several occasions treated her with rudeness 
altogether unbecoming a gentleman. In emergencies she 
seems to have relied on the advice of the Duke of 
Wellington. 

When her daughter came to the 'throne she retired as 
much as possible behind it, and after the Queen's marriage 
their households became separated. 

If any man was ever cordially hated, it was Ernest, the 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III 41 

Duke of Cumberland. Popular opinion looked upon him 
as a monster of iniquity. He was even accused of murder- 
ing one of his own attendants, a youth named Sellis ; and 
though the investigation seemed to establish the fact that it 
was Sellis who had tried to murder the Duke, and who, 
when overpowered, had cut his own throat, it was hard to 
remove an impression of the Duke's guilt from the public 
mind. 

His wife had been already twice married, —once to Prince 
Frederick of Prussia, then again to Prince Salms, by whom 
she had had children, and from whom she was divorced for 
her irregularities. She was own niece to Queen Charlotte, 
having been born a princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz ; but on 
learning of the divorce, the Queen would neither receive 
her at court, nor acknowledge her as her daughter-in-law. 

The dread throughout England was very great lest the 
young Victoria should die before she was married and had 
had children, as tnen the Duke of Cumberland would have 
mounted the English throne. Hanover, however, was a 
kingdom that had a Salic law, so that when William IV. 
died the Duke succeeded him as its sovereign, — to the 
great joy of Englishmen, who were relieved at his depar- 
ture. They were also glad to get rid of the connection 
with Hanover, looking upon it as the exciting cause of 
Continental wars. 

King Ernest of Hanover had one son, blind from his 
youth, and as good and well-beloved as his father was 
the contrary. He was very musical. He became King 
George V. of Hanover after his father's death, resisted the 
encroachments of Prussia in 1866, fought bravely in the 
battle of Langensala, where his Hanoverians distinguished 
themselves, but was finally deposed by Prussia's irresistible 
power. 

He had three children, — two daughters, and one son. 
The son has married Princess Thyra of Denmark, sister of the 
Princess of Wales and of the Empress of Russia. The eld- 
est daughter of the blind King married, after her father's 
death, the nobleman who had served him as private secre- 



42 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tary, with the full consent of Queen Victoria, as head of the 
family. There is a lovely account of this lady, under a 
slightly disguised name, in Daudet's novel, " Les Rois en 
Exil." 

Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex, had a somewhat 
singular history. He was the handsomest, the best-educated, 
the most liberal-minded and popular prince of his family. 
Early in George III.'s reign the King, in consequence of 
the marriage of his two brothers with ladies not of princely 
birth, favored the passage of an Act of Parliament called 
the Royal Marriage Act. By it no descendant of George II. ^ 
(i-/V) can contract a legal marriage without the consent of 
the sovereign, if less than twenty-five years of age. If 
over that age, and he cannot obtain the consent of the 
sovereign, notice of an intention to marry may be given to 
the Privy Council, and at the end of twelve months after 
this notice, if no objection has been made by Parliament, 
the marriage may take place, — always providing that the 
bride or bridegroom shall be a Protestant. This law, until 
recently, has restricted English royal marriages to a very 
few German Protestant princely families. In England the 
prejudice against these German marriages has been intense. 
To this day it is understood that children in various 
branches "of the royal family speak German rather than 
English among themselves. 

To return, however, to the Duke of Sussex. When the 
American Revolutionary War broke out, the Governor of 
Virginia was Lord Dunmore. He escaped, with his family, 
on board an English frigate, and on reaching England 
went down to his Scottish castle and estate. He had a 
very attractive family. One of his daughters, Lady Augusta 
Murray, was in Rome with her mother in the winter of 
1792. There the Duke of Sussex, then a very young man, 
met her, fell desperately in love with her, and succeeded 
in persuading an English clergyman, in spite of the Royal 
Marriage Act, to perform the marriage ceremony. This 

^ How far the innumerable German descendants of George II 
continue to feel themselves bound by this law I am unable to say. 



THE FAMILY OF GEORGE III. 43 

was repeated some months after in St. George's, Han- 
over Square, the banns of Augusta Murray and Augustus 
Frederick having been three times previously published, 
without attracting attention. Two children were born of 
this marriage, — Sir Augustus d'Este, and his sister, Made- 
moiselle d'Este, who married Lord Truro, subsequently 
Lord Chancellor. 

The Duke and Lady Augusta were descended from 
common royal ancestors, in three different royal lines. 
Both claimed descent from James IL, King of Scotland, 
one by the male line, the other by the female. Again, 
while the Duke descended from Margaret, sister of Henry 
Vin., Lady Augusta had for her ancestress his other sister, 
Mary. Both claimed descent from Louis I., Duke of 
Montpensier, and from Charles VH. of France, and, both 
being descended from the house of D'Este, they adopted 
that as the family name of their children. 

As soon as George HL learned the fact of the marriage, 
he took measures to have it declared null and void. The 
Duke of Sussex vehemently protested against this for some 
years, and stood up in defence of his wife, but eventually 
he weakened. Lady Augusta was created Countess of 
Ameland; but in 1809 she was forced to give up her chil- 
dren, on the ground that she " was bringing them up with 
an idea that they were princes and princesses." Troubles 
arising out of her unhappy marriage lasted till her death, 
which took place in 1830. Not long afterwards, the Duke, 
then an old man, and still in search of domestic happiness, 
in spite of the Royal Marriage Act married Lady Cecilia 
Underwood. She was ninth daughter of the Earl of 
Arran, and was born Lady Cecilia Gore ; but she had 
married Sir George Buggin, a London alderman, and on 
becoming a widow, in 1825, had obtained leave to change 
the name of Buggin to her mother's name of Underwood. 

In 1840 she was acknowledged by Queen Victoria and 
by Lord Melbourne's ministry to be the lawful wife of the 
Duke of Sussex, though not entitled to share his rank. She 
was created Duchess of Inverness in her own right, and was 



44 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

devoted in her attentions to her husband. He was Pres- 
ident of the Royal Society, a fatherly uncle to the Queen, 
a patron of literature and science, an inordinate smoker, 
and the owner of a library especially rich in valuable 
Bibles. The world had nothing to say against him, except 
that he made debts, as all his brothers did, and died 
without paying them. 

There is little to be said about Adolphus, Duke of Cam- 
bridge. His brother, while Prince Regent and George IV., 
kept him nearly always in Hanover, where he governed as 
viceroy. 

I have seen him sometimes at the Opera, — a rubicund, 
stout man, with a silly and resounding laugh. He had 
three children, — George, now Duke of Cambridge, and 
Commander-in-Chief of the British Army ; Augusta, who is 
Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz ; and Mary, a great 
favorite of the English public, who married Prince Teck, 
a German without dominions, who since his marriage has 
led the life of an English country gentleman. It is their 
daughter. Princess Mary, now Duchess of York, great- 
great-granddaughter of George III., who is likely some- 
time during the coming century to take her place as Queen 
Consort on the English throne. 

It has been noticed that " in most of the male members 
of George III.'s immediate family, who all had good abil- 
ities, there was a certain strain of folly or eccentricity, 
owing a good deal to unrestrained self-indulgence and love 
of pleasure, which led to debt and difficulties, which in 
their turn led to abandonment of principle, to strange 
shifts, to careless oddities and recklessness." 



CHAPTER II. 

GEORGE rV. MRS. FITZHERBERT. PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 

T^EW persons in our own day have a good word to say 
■'- for the last of the four Georges. 

There were some loyal souls during his lifetime (like 
dear Sir Walter Scott) who genuinely believed in " the 
divinity that doth hedge a king," and persuaded themselves 
into esteeming him accordingly. But in his lifetime all con- 
temporary memoir-writers and journal-keepers spoke of him 
disparagingly ; his brothers, who knew him best, had, with 
their familiars, none but words of insolence to say of him, 
— indeed, their satire is so fierce that it awakens a thrill 
of sympathy for their victim. Here are some of Byron's 
celebrated lines, written on the opening of the Royal 
Vaults at Windsor : — 

" Famed for their civil and domestic brawls, 
Here heartless Henry lies by headless Charles. 
Between them stands another sceptered thing, — 
It lives, it moves, in all but name a king. 
Charles to his people, — Henry to his wife, — 
In him the double tyrant starts to life. 
Justice and Death have mixed their dust in vain, 
Each royal vampire wakes to life again ! 
Ah 1 what can tombs avail when these disgorge 
Two such to make a Regent in a George ? " 

Dickens has had his fling at George IV.'s meanness, sel- 
fishness, and pomposity, in the character of Mr. Turvey- 
drop ; while Thackeray, not content with sticking his steel 
pen through him, and holding him up to infamy, in the 
" Four Georges," gives us one of the keenest bits of irony 
in the English language, when he describes him as he saw 



46 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

him at the theatre soon after he returned from India, as 
" George, the First Gentleman of Europe ; George the 
Good; George the Great and the Magnificent," bowing 
to his Heges. 

Peace be to his ashes ! There were three things to be 
said in his favor, — he dishked signing death-warrants 
(which were very plenty in his reign), and often wretched 
criminals escaped the gallows through his mercy. Moore's 
description of him at his breakfast-table, with — 

" Tea and toast, 
Death-warrants and the ' Morning Post," 

was more witty than justifiable. He had elegant manners 
and wore an elegant wig, though the deportment was as 
artificial as the other. He was also more sinned against 
than sinning in his personal relations to the crew of witty 
rascals that in his early years he gathered round him. He 
was good to Sheridan, who rewarded him with ingratitude ; 
and he left behind him a paper excusing himself for many 
of the errors of his life by pleading the anomalous nature of 
his position. 

" The duties of life," he says, " are easy to most men, — they 
fit them like a glove. Mine did not fit so well, nor so softly. I 
was blessed with a father, mother, and wife, each and all of 
whom were certainly the most intolerable persons that even 
fiction could present. . . . One of the great weaknesses of con- 
stitutional government is the impossibility of friendship or accord 
between a sovereign who thinks for himself, and any minister 
who does the same. No king may form a friendship founded 
on politics. After friendship and politics comes friendship 
and dissipation, — a sorry link, yet a strong one. Friends of 
that kind had to be sought in men strangers to politics, other- 
wise ministers would be jealous, — imagine plots, backstairs 
influence, and so on. I never had but one exception, — Sheri- 
dan ; and yet what scrapes did he not get me into ! One great 
accusation against me was that I failed to provide sufficiently 
and honorably for such friends as were ruined by their own im- 
prudence ; but if the King of England wanted a small place of 
two or three hundred pounds a year for a friend, he might go 
begging for it, and not find it. It took me far less pains to get 




KING GEORGE IV. 



GEORGE IV. 47 

Lord Moira made Governor-General of India than it did to get 
Moore the poor clerkship in Bermuda which ruined him. Again, 
with regard to marriage; It is said I married, or consented to 
be married, only that my debts might be paid ; that I had be- 
forehand determined to quarrel with and discard the Princess of 
Brunswick. Is it not more natural and proper to suppose that 
in my position I may have desired heirs to the English throne, 
and had made up my resolve for the duties as well as the pleas- 
ures and advantages ot matrimony ? that, compelled to espouse 
what I had never seen or known, I was still, as a gentleman of 
honor, prepared to reciprocate every generous, every loving, 
every delicate sentiment? Is it not possible that I may have 
been disappointed ? " 

George IV. was born in London, Aug. 12, 1762, and 
was christened George Augustus Frederick. He and liis 
brothers, York, Clarence, and Kent, were educated in great 
privacy and under extremely severe discipline. Till he was 
eighteen he led a dreary life of almost entire seclusion at 
Buckingham House, Kew, or Windsor. The ordinary recre- 
ations of his age had been so utterly denied him that when 
at eighteen he attained the usual majority of princes, he 
at once gave way to all kinds of riotous excesses. Gam- 
bling, horse-racing, and all sorts of disreputable pleasures 
occupied his time, and led him into the society of vicious 
persons. 

The French Duke of Orleans (afterwards Philippe 
Egalitd), the most advanced blackguard of his age, was 
one of his intimates ; also Fox, Sheridan, and Erskine, 
then leaders of the Whig party, and of fast London life. 
Those were the days when Colonel Byrd, of Westover, Vir- 
ginia, and other gentlemen of the old Virginia school, half 
ruined themselves by high play with His Royal Highness. 
On one occasion, when Colonel Byrd had lost heavily over 
night, he received a message in the morning from the Prince 
that half the debt would be enough to settle the account 
between them ; to which the Colonel replied promptly that 
a Virginia gentleman never staked more than he could afford 
to pay. 

George HI. was distressed and scandalized by the 



48 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

excesses of his prodigal, nor was he soothed by the Prince's 
openly joining himself with the Whig party, which was 
opposed to Mr. Pitt, and professed to be in sympathy with 
the French Revolution. 

King George was himself an enemy to every kind of pro- 
gress, a conservative of the strictest kind. He refused to 
sanction any proper income for his son, though Parliament 
was ready to grant the Prince of Wales ;^ 100,000 per 
annum. 

At the age of nineteen the Prince met a Roman Catholic 
lady, Mrs. Fitzherbert. She was six years older than him- 
self, and was the daughter of William Smythe, a Hamp- 
shire gentleman. At nineteen she had married Mr. Weld 
of Lulworth Castle, one of the same Weld family since well 
known in America. Mr. Weld died in a few months. His 
widow afterwards married Mr. Fitzherbert, of Staffordshire ; 
he died in consequence of over-exerting himself in the 
cause of law and order during Lord George Gordon's No- 
Popery Riots, in 1 780, so graphically described in " Barnaby 
Rudge." 

At twenty-five, Mrs. Fitzherbert was a beautiful young 
widow, rich, courted, and admired. Here, in the language 
of a writer in one of the English magazines, is what 
followed : — 

" George, the fat and fair young prince, already wearied of 
Mrs. Robinson, his poor Perdita, saw the brilliant young 
beauty. His heart was (as he said) seriously affected. The 
fair widow divided his affections with the bottle, and he became 
an assiduous wooer, whom Mrs. Fitzherbert endeavored as 
assiduously to avoid. Her coyness did but inflame his 
ardor. But she remained deaf to all entreaty, till Kelt, the 
surgeon. Lord Onslow, Lord Southampton, and Mr Edward 
Bouverie arrived one night at her house in the utmost con- 
sternation, informing her that the life of the Prince was in 
imminent danger, that he had stabbed himself, and that only her 
immediate presence could save him. 

" There probably never was a man so ridiculous when play- 
ing the part of a lover as the Prince of Wales. To have 
himself bled that he might make himself look interesting for a 



MRS. FITZHERBERT. 49 

moment in the eyes of some fair lady, was no unusual trick 
with him. On this occasion, however, it was positively declared 
that he had stabbed himself, and Mrs. Fitzherbert believed it 
to the day of her death. Meanwhile the four male emissaries 
of love besought the young widow to hasten and heal the 
wound. They succeeded in persuading her, after much difficulty, 
and she went to his residence at Carlton House, accompanied 
by the Duchess of Devonshire. When she reached the 
Prince's bedside she found him pale and covered with blood. 
The Prince told her that nothing would induce him to live 
unless she promised to become his wife, and let him put a ring 
on her finger." 

She yielded ; but the next day grew frightened, and 
repented. A narrative was drawn up of what had passed ; 
those who had been present signed it as witnesses, and 
Mrs. Fitzherbert, declaring that she had not been a free 
agent, fied beyond the seas. While abroad she became 
intimate with the Princess of Orange, who at that time was 
spoken of as the future Princess of Wales. 

The rage and grief of the Prince drove him to madness. 
There must have been incipient insanity in his composition. 
Lord Holland, on the testimony of Mr. Fox, says that " he 
cried by the hour ; he testified the sincerity and violence 
of his despair by extravagant expressions and actions, — 
rolling on the floor, striking his forehead, tearing his hair, 
falling into hysterics, and swearing that he would abandon 
the country, forego the crown, etc." 

Mrs. Fitzherbert remained a year on the Continent, 
"endeavoring," as she says, "to fight off" the perilous 
honor that was persistently pressed upon her. Love- 
letters from the Prince followed her in such numbers that 
the French Government of that day fancied they were con- 
nected with some intrigue on the part of the Duke of 
Orleans (Chartres at that period), and arrested two of the 
couriers. At last a love-letter of twenty-seven pages, in 
which the Prince assured her that the King, his father, 
would connive at the marriage, decided her. She came 
to England, and at the same port where she landed was 
married to the Prince by a clergyman of the Church of 

4 



50 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

England, in the presence of several witnesses, among them 
her cousin and her brother. The certificate of this mar- 
riage is in existence in the handwriting of the Prince : but 
Mrs. Fitzherbert afterwards cut out the names of the 
witnesses, for fear of bringing them into trouble. 

For some years the couple lived together as man and 
wife, and then, the Prince's debts getting intolerable, he 
applied to Parhament for money. In the course of the 
debate that followed, reference was made to his illegal mar- 
riage, when he desired his personal friend, Mr. Fox, utterly 
to deny that he ever had been married. At this Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert was naturally so indignant that her lying husband 
had to get Sheridan, another friend, to make a counter- 
speech, in which he reproached Mr. Fox for having said 
anything to the disparagement of a lady " whose good 
name, malice or ignorance alone could attempt to injure, 
and whose conduct and character were worthy of the 
truest respect." 

Though of course, in the face of the Royal Marriage Act, 
the marriage ceremony did not constitute the union of the 
heir-apparent with Mrs. Fitzherbert a legal marriage, society 
believed in her, and she was received everywhere. Even 
old Queen Charlotte was kind to her, and George III. was 
her warm friend. 

The pecuniary difficulties of the Prince marred the hap- 
piness of their union. At one time, animated by a desire 
to show the world how mean he considered the allowance 
made him by his father, the Prince sold his carriages, vacated 
Carlton House, and assumed the character of a penniless 
prodigal. This lasted, however, only a few months. The 
pair quarrelled several times, but made up again. In 1793, 
after ten years of comparative constancy, the Prince trans- 
ferred his assiduities to Lady Jersey. In 1794, as Mrs. Fitz- 
herbert was seated at the dinner-table of the Duke of 
Clarence, a note was brought her. In it her husband bade 
her farewell, saying that it was decided he must be married 
to his cousin. Princess Caroline of Brunswick. 

After this marriage Mrs. Fitzherbert, by the advice of her 



3IRS. FITZHERBERT. 



51 



friends, opened her house in a series of brilliant parties. 
All the fashionable society of London, including the royal 
princes, attended her balls. 

"Upon this, as upon all other occasions," says her friend 
and biographer. Lord Stourton, " she was principally sup- 
ported by the Duke of York, with whom through hfe she was 
always united in the most friendly and confidential relations. 
Indeed," he continues, " she frequently assured me that 
there was not one of the royal family who had not acted 
with kindness towards her; and as for George III., from 
the time she returned to England till his mind was clouded 
by insanity, had he been her own father he could not have 
acted towards her with greater kindness and affection. She 
had made it a rule to have no secrets of which the royal 
family were not informed by frequent messages, of which 
the Duke of York was generally the organ of communi- 
cation ; and to that rule she attributed at all times much 
of her own contentment and ease in extricating herself 
from embarrassments which would otherwise have been 
insurmountable." 

After the Prince Regent's alienation and separation from 
his wife, the Princess Caroline, he resumed the same desper- 
ate courtship of Mrs. Fitzherbert as she had been exposed 
to a dozen years before. Members of the royal family, 
male and female, urged her to forgive his political marriage, 
and to receive him again as her husband. 

Doubtful as to what might be right under such extraor- 
dinary circumstances, she despatched one of the chaplains 
at the Spanish Chapel (the principal Roman Catholic place 
of worship then in London) to Rome, to ask the advice of 
the Pope and Council. The reply from Rome was in a 
Brief. At that day it was against the law to bring a Pope's 
Brief into England, and this one Mrs. Fitzherbert afterwards, 
in a moment of panic, destroyed. The Pope's decision was 
that she was in truth the Prince's wife, and should return to 
him. She did so, receiving him, not clandestinely, but inviting 
him to a breakfast at her own house, with all the fashionable 
world of London. 



52 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" The next years, she told me," says Lord Stourton, " were 
the happiest of her connection with the Prince. She used to 
say they were extremely poor, but as merry as crickets ; and as 
a proof of their poverty, she told me that once, on their returning 
from Brighton to London, they mustered their common means, 
and could not raise five pounds between them. She added, how- 
ever, that even this period, the happiest of their lives, was much 
embittered by the numerous political difficulties that beset the 
Prince, and especially by all that concerned the ' delicate inves- 
tigation,' as it was proper to call the inquiry into the conduct 
of the Princess of Wales. That lady did not hesitate in the 
coarsest manner to allude to the Prince as * Mrs. Fitzherbert's 
husband.' " 

At last the Prince's wandering fancy for other ladies of 
the court led to their final separation. 

After Queen's Caroline's death, and when the Prince at 
last was King of England, he announced to Mrs. Fitzherbert 
his intention of marrying again ; to which she only replied, 
" Very well, sir." 

In conjunction with Queen Charlotte, the Duke of York 
obtained for Mrs. Fitzherbert, by a mortgage on George IV.'s 
plaything, the Pavilion at Brighton, ;^6ooo a year. Her 
influence with the old King George IIL had been so great 
that on one occasion, even when she was separated from 
the Prince, she obtained from him a promise to treat his 
son with more kindness. Soon after their final separation, 
the Prince Regent consulted her as to how he should act in 
a political emergency. She gave him excellent advice, — 
to act honestly. He of course did exactly the reverse. 

When, in spite of his usual regard for children, he was 
treating his daughter, Princess Charlotte, with extraordinary 
harshness, the poor girl threw herself on the neck of Mrs. 
Fitzherbert, and implored her to beseech her father to be 
less unkind. But when Mrs. Fitzherbert urged on the Prince 
the moral and pohtical necessity for less harshness, his only 
reply was, " So that Vs your opinion, madam." 

When he was on his death-bed, Mrs. Fitzherbert wrote 
him a touching letter, as from a wife ofifering her services to 
her sick husband. He read the letter, not without emotion, 




MRS. FITZHEKBERT. 



MRS FITZHERBERT. 53 

and he died and was buried with her portrait hung about 
his neck by a httle silver chain. 

On the accession of WilUam IV., Mrs. Fitzherbert appUed 
for an interview with him, and laid before the new sovereign 
all the documents relating to her marriage. He was moved 
to tears by the perusal, and expressed his surprise at her 
forbearance, with such papers in her possession, and under 
the pressure of such long and severe trials. He offered to 
make her some amends by creating her a Duchess ; but she 
replied that she did not wish for any rank, that she had 
borne through life the name of Mrs. Fitzherbert, and had 
done nothing to disgrace it. She was admitted to the private 
family circle of King William and Queen Adelaide, and 
always, when they stayed at Brighton, where she lived, 
attended their small Sunday parties. 

She destroyed all her papers, except a few documents 
which she sealed up, and which now lie unopened in the 
bank of Messrs. Coutts in London. The Duke of Wellington 
and Lord Albemarle assisted her in the destruction of the 
most important of her papers. 

She passed the last years of her life entirely at Brighton, 
and died in 1837, the year Queen Victoria came to the 
throne. King William had desired her to adopt for her 
servants the royal livery, and had authorized her to wear 
widow's mourning for his brother. 

To return to George IV., in his earlier days. For years 
as Prince of Wales he was on bad terms with his parents. 
His reckless extravagance, his disreputable habits, his con- 
tempt of respectability, his politics, and his private life were 
distasteful alike to the old King and Queen. 

In those days, when Europe was on the eve of great 
changes in public thought, when ardent spirits, not fore- 
seeing the Reign of Terror, hailed the coming Revolution, 
England was divided into the old Tory party, led by 
Mr. Pitt, who took for their war-cry, " King, Church, and 
Constitution," and the Whigs, led by Mr. Fox, who 
were supposed to have imbibed the principles of Rous- 
seau and the Revolution. 



54 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The Prince on coming of age (as Princes do at 
eighteen) conceived a great admiration for Mr. Fox, and 
entered into close personal relations with him, his party 
being in opposition to the King's ministers. In November, 
1788, the King's insanity forced Parliament to meet the 
question of a regency ; and after many intrigues and much 
fierce debate, members decided that it should be offered to 
the Prince of Wales, with certain restrictions, one of which 
limited his power over the King's person and over the 
other members of the royal family; for Queen Charlotte 
and her daughters had a great dread of faUing into the 
hands of such a brother and such a son. But before the 
bill came into effect, the King suddenly recovered his 
reason. The spirit that the Prince of Wales had manifested 
towards his father and mother during the discussion of the 
Regency Bill so shocked public feeling in London that 
the mob made demonstrations against him, while rejoicing 
in the old King's recovery. Perhaps I am wrong to speak 
of him as "the old King," for in 1788 George III. was 
barely fifty years old. 

After 1792 the Prince gradually ceased to be a Whig, and 
before long tried to win the favor and confidence of Mr. 
Pitt and the Tories. This turning of his coat is not so 
much to his discredit as it at first appears, for by 1797 Mr. 
Fox had withdrawn himself from politics, and the French 
Revolution had disgusted and disheartened the friends who 
had welcomed it with enthusiasm a few years before. 

In 1794 the Prince (as I have told already), in order to 
obtain the second payment of his debts, and a larger income 
from Parliament, intimated his willingness to marry any lady 
of royal birth selected for him. The one chosen was his 
cousin, Princess Caroline of Brunswick. Referring to Mrs. 
Fitzherbert, Queen Charlotte said, when informed of the 
probability of this marriage, " George best knows whether 
he can reconcile it to his conscience to marry." 

Lord Malmesbury, a trained diplomatist, was sent over to 
Brunswick to bring the young lady to England. The reve- 
lations jotted down in his journal day by day are very, frank 
and very amusing. 



CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 55 

"Princess Caroline of Brunswick," he says, "while endowed 
by nature with a kind heart, and some quickness of apprehen- 
sion, was as ineligible a person as could have been selected for 
the consort of the future King of Great Britain. Her education 
had been wretchedly neglected, she was vain, giddy, and impru- 
dent, addicted to the society of persons infinitely below her own 
rank, whom she treated with unbecoming familiarity, totally 
ignorant of the world and its usages, and unable to control her 
tongue. She stood in awe of her father, who was an austere 
person, and who treated his children habitually, it was said, with 
much severity. For her mother she had no respect, and did not 
scruple, when she could find an opportunity, — which occurred 
only too often, — to turn her into ridicule. Her conversation was 
that of a thorough gossip, — her manners those of a flirt. She 
was disposed to be liberal, not from generosity, but from abso- 
lute carelessness, — a fault she extends to her person." 

Subsequently he writes while conducting her to England : 

" I had two conversations with the Princess Caroline, one on 
the toilet, on cleanliness, and delicacy of speaking. On these 
points I endeavored, as far as was possible for a man^ to incul- 
cate the necessity of great and nice attention to every part of 
dress, as well to what was hid as to that which was seen. . . . 
It is amazing how on this point her education has been neglected, 
and how much her mother, though an Englishwoman, has been 
inattentive to it." 

Was ever an tinfortunate ambassador, a man of courts and 
councils, sent on such an embassy? He was required to act 
the part of Mentor to this vulgar, ignorant, headstrong girl, 
— by no means in her first youth, — elated by the promo- 
tion held out to her, and absolutely beyond his control. He 
sums up her character as that of one " who, in the hands of 
a steady and sensible man, would probably turn out well ; 
but when it is likely she will meet with faults perfectly anal- 
ogous to her own, she must fail." 

After a delay of three months in Hanover, and consider- 
able difficulty in getting safe across the high seas (for the 
year was 1795, and England was at war with the French 
Republic), the, Princess landed at Greenwich. The Royal 
carriages had not arrived to meet her, and she was kept 
waiting for more than an hour on the landing-place. They 



56 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

at last appeared, and the Princess reached St. James's Palace 
in the middle of the afternoon. 

Here is Lord Malmesbury's account of the Prince's first 
interview with his bride : — 

" I notified our arrival to the King and the Prince of Wales. 
The last came immediately. I, according to the established eti- 
quette, introduced (no one else being in the room) the Princess 
Carohne to him. She very properly, in consequence of my say- 
ing to her that it was the right way of proceeding, attempted to 
kneel to him. He raised her gracefully enough, embraced hen 
said barely a word, turned round, retired to a distant part of the 
room, and, calling me to him, said, ' Harris, I am not well ; pray 
get me a glass of brandy.' I said, ' Sir, had you not better have 
a glass of water ? ' Upon which he, much out of humor, said, 
with an oath, ' No, I will go directly to the Queen.' And away 
he went. The Princess, left during this short moment alone, 
was in a state of astonishment, and, on my rejoining her, said, 
* Mon Dieu ! is the Prince always like that ? He is so fat, and 
not nearly so handsome as his pictures ! ' I endeavored to say 
that his Royal Highness was naturally a good deal flurried and 
affected by this first interview, but she would certainly find him 
different at dinner.'' 

Alas ! during that dinner the poor girl's conduct was flip- 
pant, ratriing, wanting in ordinary delicacy. The Prince was 
evidently disgusted. " And this unfortunate^ dinner," says 
Lord Malmesbury, " fixed his dislike, which, when left to 
herself, the Princess had not the talent to remove." 

The unhappy pair were married a few days after, the 
Prince on that occasion being civil, and not ungracious, 
though his father, who stood behind him, had to prompt his 
responses. 

What could come of such an ill-starred union but division 
and unhappiness? 

Within a year after the marriage the Princess gave birth 
to a daughter, — the Princess Charlotte. The wife and 
husband (if wife and husband they were) lived for some 
months after their child's birth under the same roof, but 
they never spoke to one another. Then a formal separa- 
tion took place, and the Princess retired to Blackheath. 



CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 57 

The excuse for this ill-treatment within a year after the 
marriage was simply that the Prince " had taken a dislike 
to her." The Lord Chancellor Thurlow, a man noted for 
rough speech, said to another nobleman that he thought 
the Prince's strange conduct could only be imputed to mad- 
ness, and that he was struck by the good sense and discre- 
tion of the Princess. This, however, was not to last long ; 
cast off by her husband, friendless in a strange land, her 
lady-in-waiting (Lady Jersey) notoriously the reigning 
favorite with the Prince, the unhappy woman became 
reckless. She put no restraint on her incurably gamin 
temper, her capricious choice of friends, her love of scan- 
dal and of gossip, her taste for flattery, and her propensity 
to say and do imprudent things. "People may talk," she 
said, " I do not care ! From henceforth I will do what I 
please, — that I will! " 

She did nothing very bad, however, for some years, when 
a lady whose friendship she had most imprudently made, 
and whom she afterwards discarded, brought charges against 
her which were inquired into by a Parliamentary commis- 
sion. This was known by the name of the " delicate inves- 
tigation ; " but in spite of the influence of the Prince of 
Wales, who earnestly hoped matter might be found on which 
to ground a charge which must lead to a divorce, the 
Princess was pronounced not guilty on the graver charges, 
though cautioned for the future to be more circumspect.^ 

After 1 814 the Princess went abroad. She wandered 
over Europe for four years, living principally in a villa on 
the Lake of Como. The general impropriety of her con- 
duct, and the relations that seemed to exist between her 
and her Italian chamberlain, Bergami, led all respectable 
Enghsh people to keep aloof from her. 

King George IIL had always been kind to her, as long 

^ My father, who was home from the Mediterranean on sick leave, 
and was staying at Blackheath at the time, has often told me that the 
population of Blackheath openly expressed opinions unfavorable to 
Princess Caroline ; but could any serious charge have been substan- 
tiated, we may be sure it would have been taken advantage of. 



58 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

as he retained his reason ; but he lost it permanently in 
1810, having been worried from many causes into hopeless 
insanity. On his death, in 1820, the first act of the new- 
King was to forbid the insertion of his wife's name into the 
Prayer-book, where the name of a queen consort always 
appears in the Litany, and in prayers for the health and 
welfare of the royal family. George IV. was resolved that 
the woman he hated should not be prayed for by his people 
as Queen of England. 

Queen Caroline at once returned from Italy. The popu- 
lace of England, beUeving her to be at least as much sinned 
against as sinning, took her part, and made riotous demon- 
strations in her favor. King George IV., whose daughter, 
Princess Charlotte, had been dead for eighteen months, 
ardently wished for a divorce, that he might make another 
marriage. Another investigation of the Queen's conduct 
took place, not, this time, in secret, but openly before the 
House of Lords, during the summer of 1820. Lord 
Brougham (then Henry Brougham) was the Queen's coun- 
sel. The particulars are not edifying, though in those days 
the foul details were in everybody's mouth. 

The King was not able to obtain his divorce, for there 
were no direct proofs of the criminality of the Queen, and 
the peers, like the people, seem to have judged that how- 
ever bad the Queen's conduct might have been, that of her 
husband had been worse, and that he was more responsible. 
However, though she achieved a partial triumph, nothing 
would induce the King to acknowledge her in any way as 
Queen of England. At the coronation she came in her 
robes and tried to gain admittance at every door of West- 
minster Abbey ; but special guards had been stationed to 
prevent her entrance, and she was everywhere refused. 

On that occasion she stood for two hours within a few 
feet of my mother, then a bride, who had a seat in the gal- 
lery erected between the Banqueting Hall and the Abbey. 
Part of the time she was in tears, but more often she acted 
with an effrontery and a flippancy which greatly outraged 
my mother's sense of propriety. 



CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 59 

She did not long survive this mortification. She died in 
August of the same year. Her body was taken to Bruns- 
wick for burial, the populace attending it through London 
with riotous demonstrations of sympathy. 

The remainder of George IV.'s reign was passed in quar- 
rels with his ministers, who in general found it hard " to get 
along " with him. He hated the Duke of Wellington, and 
so did his brothers, the Dukes of York and Cumberland. 
The questions that agitated England were that of Catho- 
lic Emancipation and the dawning one of Parliamentary 
Reform. 

On the accession of King William and Queen Mary, in 
1688, such terror was felt throughout England of Roman 
Cathohc influence that the Test Act was strictly enforced, 
and a new oath of allegiance was exacted besides. By 
this Act, which was in force until almost the close of the 
reign of George IV., every officer of the Crown, even down 
to a midshipman, who desired a lieutenant's commission, 
had to take an oath renouncing all allegiance to the Pope 
of Rome, all belief in transubstantiation or the invocation 
of saints, and also had in public to receive the Holy Com- 
munion according to the rites of the Church of England. 
This excluded conscientious Roman Catholics (and in 
many instances Protestant Dissenters) from serving their 
King and country. They could not send their sons to the 
English universities ; they had to worship in unpretentious 
chapels in obscure places ; they could not sit as magistrates, 
nor vote for members of Parliament. 

The object of the Catholic Emancipation Bill was to abol- 
ish the Oath of Abjuration and the Test Act. 

All England on this subject was wildly agitated. When, 
returning from New England in 1828, we reached England 
in October, I was six years old, and well remember seeing 
the words "No Popery" scrawled in chalk upon fences and 
walls along our route from Liverpool to London. 

In those days, during the time of an election, all Tories 
wore blue badges, and the Whigs yellow. I recollect one 
Tory in Ipswich who would not suck an orange or eat 



60 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the yolk of an egg during an election. Of course this 
wearing of colors led to fights and riots indescribable, 
especially as the Blue and Yellow candidates had each 
their own public- houses, at which their supporters were 
supplied with beer.^ 

The Catholic Relief Bill passed in 1829, under the 
administration of the Duke of Wellington. That year 
and the next there were riots all over England in oppo- 
sition to the introduction of threshing-machines. I have 
seen barns blazing by night in all quarters of the horizon. 
Farmers were warned by a mysterious individual, " Tom 
Swing," and if they did not at once abandon their new 
machines and take back the old flails for threshing, their 
barns were fired. 

Before the passage of the CathoHc Relief 'Bill, however, 
the King, wishing to re-establish his popularity, which had 
been so much impaired by the Queen's trial, determined to 
make several progresses in different parts of his dominions. 
He had never in his life been out of England. He went 
to Ireland, where his reception was cordial, but he was two 
days crossing the Irish Channel on his return to England. 
His yacht, which was attended by several English warships, 
encountered a stiff gale, and for some hours the King was, 
or thought himself, in great danger. He visited Hanover, 
landing at Calais on his way thither, where in the street 
among the crowd he caught sight of his discarded favorite, 
Beau Brummel. He does not seem to have admired his 
German subjects, who, however, did their best to convince 
him that they were delighted to see their sovereign, after 
having been deprived of that honor for more than sixty 
years. In the summer of 1822 it was decided that he 
should visit Scotland. Poor dear Sir Walter Scott made 
the arrangements for his reception in Edinburgh, where, 
at a great levee held at Holyrood, His Majesty appeared 
dressed in the Highland garb, affording food for laughter 
to those who found it ludicrous that an immensely fat King 

1 An account of an election such as I saw in Ipswich in 1829 may be 
found, with little exaggeration, in Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year." 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 6 1 

should appear as a Highlander in a Lowland city, where 
three-quarters of a century before, all Highlanders had been 
considered savages and cattle-thieves. " Surely," says 
Lockhart, in that delightful book of biography, his Life of 
Scott, " no Stuart prince, except Prince Charles when in 
rebellion against the great-grandfather of George IV., had 
ever thought of presenting himself in the saloons of Holy- 
rood in Celtic array ! " 

The King, however, professed to assume this incon- 
gruous costume out of compliment to the Scottish nation. 
The affair had at least one merit : it gave pleasure in his 
waning days to the dear and good man, Sir Walter Scott, 
whom all generations of English-speaking men and women 
should delight to honor. He had the entire charge of 
the arrangements, which he conducted, as far as he could, 
with mediaeval pageantry. 

Here is his letter on the occasion to his eldest son : — 

My dearest Walter, — This town has been the scene 
of such giddy tumult since the King's coming, and for a fort- 
night before, that I have scarce had an instant to myself. 
For a long time everything was thrown on my hands, and even 
now, looking back and thinking how many difficulties I had to 
reconcile, objections to answer, prejudices to smooth away, and 
purses to open, I am astonished I did not have a fever in the 
midst of it. All, however, has gone off most happily, and the 
Edinburgh population have behaved themselves like so many 
princes ; for the day when he went in state from the Abbey to 
the Castle with the regalia borne before him, the street was 
lined with the various trades and professions, arranged under 
their own deacons and office-bearers, with white wands in their 
hands, and with their banners, and so forth. As they were all 
in their Sunday clothes, you positively saw nothing like mob, 
and their behavior, which was most steady and respectful 
towards the King, without either jostling or crowding, had a 
most excellent effect. They shouted with great emphasis, but 
without any running or roaring, each standing as still in his 
place as if the honor of Scotland had depended on his be- 
havior. . . . The Celtic Society, "all plaided and plumed in 
their tartan array," mounted guard over the regalia in the 
Abbey with great order and stateliness. They were exceed- 



()2 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ingly nobly dressed and armed. There were from two to three 
hundred Highlanders besides, brought down by their own chiefs, 
and armed cap-k-pie. They were all put under my immediate 
command by their own chiefs, as they would not have liked to 
receive orders from each other. . . . To-morrow or next day 
the King sets off, and I also take my departure, being willing 
to see Canning before he goes off for India, — if, indeed, they 
are insane enough to part with a man of his power. 

Lockhart in his Life of Scott does not by any means 
share his father-in-law's enthusiasm. On the contrary, he 
pokes some sly fun at the ceremonies on the occasion. 
He tells how, when Sir Walter (an old acquaintance of 
His Majesty) went on board the royal yacht on its arrival, 
the King called for a bottle of Highland whiskey, and, 
having drunk Sir Walter's health in that national liquor, 
caused another glass to be filled for him. Sir Walter, after 
draining it, made a request that the King would condescend 
to bestow upon him the glass out of which His Majesty had 
just drunk his health. This being graciously granted him, 
the precious article was immediately wrapped up and de- 
posited in the pocket of Sir Walter's coat. On reaching 
home, he found the venerable Mr. Crabbe awaiting him; 
and in his joy at seeing his brother-poet, he drew up a 
chair, sat eagerly down beside Crabbe, — and the glass in 
his coat-tail was smashed to atoms ! 

Lockhart says also, *' The King at his first levee di- 
verted many and delighted Scott by appearing in the 
full Highland garb. His Majesty's Celtic attire had been 
carefully watched over by the Laird of Garth, who was not 
a little proud of his achievement. ... In truth King 
George did look a most stately and imposing person in 
that beautiful dress ; but his satisfaction was cruelly dis- 
turbed when he caught sight of Sir William Curtis, the fat 
and eccentric London alderman, dressed in the same Stuart 
tartans and all the rest of the Highland paraphernalia." 

As to the central figure among the "plaided and 
plumed," if we wish to see how unloved and unrespected 
he was in his own home at Windsor Castle, — a failure in 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 63 

every relation of life, — we may take this passage from 
Charles Greville's Memoirs : — 

" The Kino- complains that he is tired to death of all the 
people about him. He is less violent than he was about the 
Catholic Question, — tired of that too, and does not wish to 
hear any more about it. He leads a most extraordinary life ; 
never gets up till six in the afternoon. They come to him and 
open the window curtains about six or seven in the morning. 
He breakfasts in bed, and whatever business he can be brought 
to transact is done in bed too. He reads every newspaper 
straight through; dozes three or four hours; gets up in time 
for dinner ; and goes to bed between ten and eleven. He sleeps 
very ill, and rings his bell forty times a night. If he wants to 
know the hour, though a watch hangs close to him, he will have 
his valet-de-chambre down rather than turn his head to look 
at it. The same thing if he wants a glass of water." 

A few months after Charles Greville wrote thus in his 
"Journal," the King died. Ten days after his death 
Greville again records : " Nobody thinks anything more 
of the late King than if he had been dead fifty years, unless 
it be to abuse him, and rake up his vices and misdeeds." 

A few pages must suffice for the Princess Charlotte, whose 
fate, however, made so deep an impression on the nation 
that for more than a generation after, one class of the 
people dated events before or after " the death of Princess 
Charlotte." ^ 

Princess Charlotte was born, poor girl, on Jan. 7, 1 796. 
The separation of her parents occurred a short time after, 
and the Princess of Wales went to reside principally 
at Montague House, Blackheath. There, for a little while, 
the baby was suffered to remain with her ; afterwards they 
were parted, and she was only allowed to see her daughter 
once a week. 

^ When in our nursery we would ask our dear old English nurse, 
" How long have you had this bodkin, or this ribbon ? " she 
would answer : " Let me see : I think I had it two winters before 
Princess Charlotte died." And I have elsewhere met the same mode 
of computation. 



64 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Hannah More speaks of Princess Charlotte as being in 
her babyhood " exactly like the child of a private gentle- 
man, — wild and natural, sensible, lively, and civil. Though 
only six years old, when the Bishop of London one day 
told her that on her next visit to the sea- side she would be 
in his diocese, she dropped unbidden on her knees, and 
asked his blessing." 

After a time the Princess was removed to Carlton House, 
her father's residence ; but weekly she used to be driven 
over to Blackheath to see her mother. " On these occa- 
sions," says an eye-witness, "she stood at the carriage-door 
kissing her pretty hand to those who bowed to her, her 
beautiful fair hair falling on her shoulders. One day we 
observed, to our surprise, that she wore a black crop wig, 
surmounted by a turban with a rose in it. On remarking 
this to a lady connected with the court, she said, ' Oh, I 
can explain it. The Prince of Wales the other day asked 
Lady Elgin why the child's hair was suffered to grow long 
in that frightful manner. And on hearing that her mother 
liked it long, he sent for scissors, and, without another word, 
cut the hair off himself so close to the child's head that it 
had to be rubbed with spirits to prevent her taking cold.' " 

Princess Charlotte loved her mother, " who," says the 
same writer, " though wayward and flighty almost beyond 
belief, had a certain gay good-humor very attractive to 
children ; but the little Princess was by no means fond of 
her grandmother. Queen Charlotte, whom her mother had 
taught her to consider stern and stingy." 

It must, however, be said in defence of Queen Charlotte 
that after her death it was found out that her six extrava- 
gant younger sons had been a continual drain on her 
resources. 

One day, when Princess Charlotte had been deliberately 
guilty of a breach of court etiquette in her behavior to 
the Queen, the old lady sent for her, and addressed her 
thus : " The King's days can be but few, and should an 
untimely end unhappily await his successor, your father, 
you would be Queen of England. In that case I should 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 6$ 

think it proper to pay you the same respect that you now 
owe to me." This so much touched the Princess that she 
burst into tears. 

Her character was compounded of self-will, caprice, and 
obstinacy, tempered by kind-heartedness, generosity, a 
strong love of truth, candor, and rectitude. It depended into 
what hands she would fall in matrimony, which elements 
would prevail. 

She was fine-looking rather than beautiful, very pale, 
with a lovely neck and arms. She stuttered a little, but 
her voice was " ever soft, gentle, and low, — an excellent 
thing in woman." 

As she grew older, her father placed her at Warwick 
House, the back of which looked upon the gardens of Carl- 
ton House, his own residence, and he forbade her to make 
any more visits to her mother. It was then that a touching 
interview took place between mother and child in the Park, 
Their carriages met on one of the drives near the artificial 
lake called the Serpentine, and drew up side by side, when 
mother and daughter leaned forward, and for a moment 
were clasped in each other's arms. 

In 1 8 14 the Prince of Orange presented himself in Eng- 
land as Princess Charlotte's suitor. Her father wished her 
to marry him, and at first she consented. But on discover- 
ing that one object of the match was to remove her from 
England, she broke off the engagement. Persuaded that 
her aversion to the Prii^e was fostered by her mother, the 
Prince Regent is said to have broken open his daughter's 
writing-desk and seized her letters. He resolved also to 
remove her to Cranbourne Lodge, a dull, secluded residence 
in the centre of Windsor Forest. 

"Accordingly, he repaired to Warwick House, accompanied 
by five ladies whom he had chosen to replace the ladies of her 
household. These he left in an ante-chamber while he had an 
interview with the Princess, in which he told her abruptly and 
rouglily that her attendants were all dismissed ; that she must 
pack up instantly and accompany the new ladies he had provided 
for her to Cranbourne Lodge. Commanding her outraged feel- 

S 



66 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ings, she only begged she might have five minutes given her to 
take leave of her attendants and prepare for the journey. On 
her leaving the room, her father, pleased with his own good 
management, returned to Carlton House to dress for dinner. 
No sooner had he left the house than the Princess, in bonnet 
and shawl, stole down the back stairs and passed out alone into 
the street. She called the first hackney-coach she met, and, 
putting a guinea into the astonished coachman's hand, ordered 
him to drive her to Connaught House, where her mother was 
then Hving. The Princess of Wales proved to be spending the 
day at Blackheath. Thither Princess Charlotte at once sent a 
messenger. Her mother was in her carriage to return home 
when this messenger reached her. She showed spirit and good 
judgment on the occasion. She drove at once to the House of 
Commons and asked to see Mr. Whitbread, who was not there, 
then to the House of Lords to "get Lord Grey, who was also 
absent. Then she secured Mr. Brougham, and also Miss 
Mercer Elphinstone, one of Princess Charlotte's young girl 
friends. Soon after these reached Connaught House the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, and the 
Duke of Sussex, together with several other persons sent by the 
Prince Regent, arrived, each in a hackney-coach, no one having 
had time to order his own carriage and horses." 

The Lord Chancellor was very violent with the Princess, 
— the rest persuasive. There was no help for her. By the 
law of England she was absolutely subject to the King's (or 
Regent's) will during her minority. She is said to have ex- 
acted a promise that she should not be forced to marry the 
Prince of Orange, and was then carried back to Warwick 
House, whence, with her new ladies, she was removed to 
what was almost an imprisonment at Cranbourne Lodge. 

Her mother, either to carry out a previously formed re- 
solve, or because her presence seemed to embarrass her 
daughter's position, left England for the Continent a month 
later, and mother and daughter never met again. 

Princess Charlotte's health failed, under the many restric- 
tions forced upon her. She was not allowed to see her 
friends, and it was only occasionally and with difficulty that 
she could get leave to write to them. Here are one or two 
of her letters at that period. 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 6/ 

She had asked leave to see a friend who was going abroad, 
and who was soon to be married. 

"This was refused, and with a clause, too," she says, "that 
no visits shall be allowed until after my return from Weymouth. 
This has made me quite hopeless and spiritless. At Weymouth 
I hope to remain not more than a month. Going there is a 
devoir for my health. Certainly I stand very much in need ot' 
being recruited in health. ... If you will write to me as often 
as you can, 1 shall feel it very kind of you, and I shall not fail in 
writing ; only consider that i/ you do not always get 7)iy letters 
it is not fny own fault, and that I have written. And I shall 
think the same if 1 do not hear from you. . . . What may or 
may not happen to me, God only can tell. For those who are 
happy, looking forward is a happy reflection ; for those unhappy, 
a sorrowful one of uncertainty. Should I have any commissions 
(to you I cannot call thera commands), I will give them to you, 
but I know of none I can give you but that of not forgetting me, 
and not beheving all you may hear about me." 

Again, in the same letter, recurring to the refusal to let 
her see her friend, she repeats : — 

" How bitter a mortification it is, heightened by bad spirits 
and presentiments of God knows what ! There are pains and 
pangs that come sometimes and make one think one's heart will 
quite break, — is it not so ? This is a grave letter, I fear too 
grave ; I have tried not to make it more so. I wish and I pray 
for your health and happiness and all that can add to it, and that 
when we meet it may be under happier auspices and circum- 
stances. I can only offer you my best wishes. It is little. . . . 
Will you accept the enclosed trifle ? It is only that, but it is all 
I have to offer of my own ; and I have no means of any sort to 
procure what might be more worthy of your acceptation." 

Her health improved at Weymouth, and some months 
later she wrote again to her friend : — 

" I always think six months got over of the dreadful life I 
lead six months gained, but when the time comes for moving 
from place to place I do it with reluctance, from never knowing 
my lot, or what may next befall me. Esperance et Constance is 
my motto, and that supports me through it all." 



68 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Again : — 

" It makes me sad to think of the time past, and of the time 
to come. 1 don't know what is most painful to think of, — the 
past, or the future. . . . My life is one quite of uncertainty from 
day to day, hour to hour, and total ignorance of what my fate 
will be, where to go, and how things will be arranged." 

This letter terminates with words of the most generous 
appreciation of the stern old grandmother, who had never 
been very kind to her, but whose conduct in a matter of 
family morality she entirely approved. 

This last letter was written in September, 1815, ten weeks 
after the battle of Waterloo. Esperance et Constance had 
been her motto, and the kind Father in Heaven was provid- 
ing happiness for the desolate girl. All unconsciously to her, 
the moment of her deliverance was at hand. 

There had come to England in 18 14 in the train of the 
Allied Sovereigns, a young Austrian lieutenant of dragoons, 
dressed in a handsome white uniform. He was poor, and 
lodged in a by-street, over a little greengrocer's shop, which 
my father often pointed out to me. 

This was Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Princess 
Charlotte had noticed 'him at one of the very few fetes at 
Carlton House that she had been permitted to attend, and 
had then expressed the opinion that he was so. handsome 
she wondered that the lady to whom he was said to be 
attached did not at once accept him. It is supposed also 
that he may have been favorably recommended to her 
notice by the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, sister of the 
Emperor Alexander. At any rate, early in January, 181 6, 
Prince Leopold was summoned to England, and encouraged 
to propose himself as suitor to the Princess Charlotte. 

Her father had never been willing to consider her in the 
light of the possible heiress to the English throne. His 
hope was to divorce his wife and to become the father of a 
son. Parliament, however, persisted in considering Princess 
Charlotte as his heir. 

Her father may have thought she had been sufficiently 
punished for her escapade in escaping from Warwick House ; 



PFINCESS CHARLOTTE. 69 

he may have been sensible that his harsh treatment of her 
was increasing his unpopularity, and the desire of the coun- 
try to see her married may have weighed with him and his 
ministers. Princess Charlotte had thought Prince Leopold 
handsome in 18 14, and as soon as she knew more of him 
his high qualities filled her with admiration. 

The courtship went on smoothly and prosperously. They 
were married on the 2d of May, 1816. 

" She had longed for the sympathy and affection denied her 
in her miserable girlhood. Now she found both in the fullest 
measure, and her happiness was just as great as her former suf- 
fering had been extreme. 

" Everybody knows that her marriage was perfectly happy, 
but it is only by recollecting her former misery that we can ap- 
preciate what her happiness was. In place of constant petty 
coercion, — indulgence. Instead of isolation, loneliness, and 
suspicion, — sympathy and confidence in their fullest measure. 
And the society of all the old friends she loved, as well as of 
many fresh ones whose talents or goodness could recommend 
them to her. And her happiness did not spoil her any more 
than adversity had hardened her. The few letters preserved 
after her marriage breathe the same spirit of humility, unselfish- 
ness, gratitude for kindness, and generous thought for others. 
. . . Though her nature and that of Prince Leopold were very 
different, there could not have been more perfect harmony than 
that which existed between them. She was impulsive, quick- 
tempered, eager, and impetuous ; he was quiet, courteous, re- 
served, and grave : but those who lived with them, especially her 
old friends, could not help being touched and amused by the 
change wrought in her by the influence of this temperament so 
unlike her own. All her little roughnesses quieted down, her 
vehement expressions of likes and dislikes were restrained by a 
reproving look or word. Leopold at that time spoke little English, 
— they usually talked French together; and when her ton2;ue 
and her high spirits were carrying her beyond the bounds of 
dignity and prudence, she would be checked by his ' DoiiceJiicnt^ 
fna chcre, doucement.'' She called him Dozicement, but she took 
his advice, acted on it, and indeed thought of nothing but pleas- 
ing him and showing her gratitude for the happiness he had 
brought her. He, on his part, felt the bright influence of her 
sunny disposition, her liveliness, and warmth of heart on his own 
naturally melancholy and somewhat morbid disposition." 



70 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

It is a little singular that Leopold twice supplanted the 
Prince of Orange, — once as a suitor, once as a sovereign ; 
Belgium having been torn from Holland fourteen years 
after his marriage with the heiress to the throne of England. 

Claremont, which had been built originally for Lord Clive, 
(vas purchased by Parliament for the residence of the young 
couple, and the eighteen months they spent there was a con- 
tinual honeymoon. The grounds of Claremont House are 
of great extent, and the gardens employed twenty gardeners. 

" All the stories that have come down to us of her life at 
Claremont exhibit her unbounded goodness of heart and 
tender charity, colored by an engaging bonhomie that must 
have been irresistible. Now we find her ordering twelve thou- 
sand yards of silk for the furnishing of her house to assist the 
Spitalfields weavers, now aiding the 'suffering Irish,' now 
visiting the cottages and interesting herself in the domestic 
concerns of the rustics of the neighborhood. She delighted 
in the place, and busied herself with the gardens and the 
forming of the library. Happy as was this life, it was to 
last but a little time ! " 

In October, 1817, only a month before the young wife's 
death, Sir Thomas. Lawrence went down to Claremont to 
take her portrait. He has left an account of his visit, in 
which he says : — 

" The Princess is, as you know, wanting in elegance of de- 
portment, but has nothing of the hoyden or of that boisterous 
hilarity which has been attributed to her. Her manner is ex- 
ceedingly frank and simple, but not rudely abrupt or coarse, and 
I have in this little residence of nine days witnessed considerable 
evidence of an honest, just, English nature, . . . somewhat like 
that of the good King, her grandfather. If she does nothing 
gracefully, she does everything kindly. ... It gratifies me to 
see that she both loves and respects Prince Leopold, whose 
conduct and character indeed deserve those feelings. From the 
report of the gentlemen of his household, he is considerate, be- 
nevolent, and just, and of very amiable manners. My own 
observation leads me to think that in his behavior to her he is 
affectionate and attentive, rational and discreet. . . . Her man- 
ner of addressing him was always as affectionate as it was 
simple, — ' my love ; ' and his to her was ' Charlotte.' " 





PRLVCESS CHARLOTTE. 



PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. Jl 

The portrait Sir Thomas Lawrence was to paint was in- 
tended to be her present to Prince Leopold upon his birth- 
day. Alas ! when that birthday came she and her little 
babe lay in one coffin. Surgical mismanagement, it was 
thought, brought about their deaths, and the surgeon in 
attendance killed himself. 

The picture was taken down to Claremont and placed in 
the breakfast-room. Strong men who had known her in her 
brief days of happiness, when they saw it wept aloud. 

The young widower desired to see Sir Thomas Lawrence 
before he returned to London, and this is Sir Thomas's 
report of their interview : — 

" The Prince was looking exceedingly pale, but received me 
with a firm effort at composure. ' Two generations gone ! ' he 
said, ' gone in one moment. I have felt for myself, but I have 
also felt for the Prince Regent. My Charlotte has gone from 
the country ! It has lost her ! She was a good — she was an 
admirable woman. None could know my Charlotte as I did 
know her. It was my study — it was my duty to know her 
character ; it was also my delight. Yes,' he resumed, ' she had 
a fine, clear understanding, and very quick. She was candid, 
she was open, and not suspecting. But she saw characters at 
a glance — she saw them so true. You saw her, — you saw 
something of us ; you saw us for some days, you saw our 
year. Oh, what happiness! And it was solid, — it could not 
change. We knew each other. Except when I went out to 
shoot, we were always together, and we could be together, — we 
did not tire.'" 

Subsequently he said : — 

" She was always thinking of others, not of herself. No one 
so little selfish ! — always looking out for the comfort of others. 
In pain, when even good people will be selfish, my Charlotte 
was not." 

Prince Leopold made Claremont his home for many 
years. In 1826 he refused the throne of Greece, which 
it is said he afterwards regretted, and in 1831 he accepted 
that of Belgium. 

For twenty years the room in which Princess Charlotte 
died at Claremont was kept closed. Prince Leopold's 



72 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

sister, the Duchess of Kent, and his niece, the Princess 
Victoria, were often with him. At Claremont there is a 
picture of the Duchess of Kent with her baby daughter 
playing with a miniature of her dead father. 

When Leopold became King of the Belgians it was made 
a condition that he should marry the Princess Louise of 
Orleans, the eldest daughter of Louis Philippe, who thus 
became aunt to Queen Victoria, and her warm personal 
friend. 

Both the Queen and Prince Albert looked upon King 
Leopold as a father; their youngest son was named for 
him, and the Princess Louise was called after his Queen. 

Leopold died in 1865. He had two sons and one 
daughter by his second marriage. His eldest son, the 
present King of the Belgians, has no son, and the heir- 
presumptive to the Belgian throne is his brother, the Earl 
of Flanders. The daughter was named Charlotte. This 
name was Italianized into Carlotta when she married the 
Archduke Maximihan of Austria, who met his death at 
Queretaro, as the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. She 
is the "poor Carlotta" whose sad fate touches all hearts, 
and who is tenderly cared for by her Belgian relatives. 

Claremont seems to be a home of sorrows. King 
Leopold placed it at the disposition of his father-in-law, 
Louis Philippe, in 1848, who two years later died there. 
There too died the good and gracious widow of his son, 
H^lene, Duchess of Orleans. The widowed Duchess of 
Albany and her children live there now. 



CHAPTER HI. 

LORD CASTLEREAGH. MR. CANNING. — THE DUKE OF 

WELLINGTON. 

T HAVE said that the summer of 1822 is the date of a 
■'■ great change in the governing principle of the Euro- 
pean world, — a change from blind conservatism to a pas- 
sion for progress, — and that that change was the immediate 
consequence of the suicide of the Marquis of Londonderry, 
better known in history as Lord Castlereagh. 

And yet, though " his body lies mouldering in the grave," 
the work that he accomplished still cries aloud to be un- 
done. He it was who was the leading spirit at that Con- 
gress of Vienna which carved Europe into portions in the 
interest of rulers, small and great, who held out their hands 
for such slices of territory as might be assigned them. 
He it was who, in conjunction with Lord Cornwallis, did 
away with the old Irish Parliament, and effected what it 
is somewhat an Irish bull to call the " Union." He put 
down the rebellion in 1798. He, more than even Wel- 
lington (who was raised to command in the Peninsula 
by his direct influence), overthrew the great Napoleon's 
imperial throne. 

It will not, therefore, be out of place if I briefly run over 
some few particulars in the life of a man whose death 
closed a period in English policy. 

His name was Robert Stewart. The name by which 
he is best known, — Lord Castlereagh, — was the honorary 
title given to the eldest son of the Marquis of London- 
derry. These Stewarts were not of the clan royal of Scot- 
land, though they came from that country to Ireland in 



74 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the days of James I. The family were ultra-Protestant. 
In the war between William of Orange and James II., 
one of them, at the head of a troop of horse (raised at his 
own expense), was active in the celebrated siege of Lon- 
donderry, so graphically described by Lord Macaulay. 

Lord Castlereagh's father was made first Marquis of 
Londonderry, after rapidly ascending the lower steps of 
the peerage. He married an English lady of rank, and 
their first son was born in 1769, — a year made memorable 
by the birth of many great men. On coming of age Lord 
Castlereagh wished to enter into public life, and it cost 
his father ;2{^6o,ooo ($300,000), and made him a poor man 
for the rest of his days, to get him a seat in the Irish Par- 
liament, so enormous were the election expenses in those 
days. His first act was to express his intention of promot- 
ing Parliamentary reform; but '-circumstances" alter the 
views of statesmen, and the last part of his life was taken 
up in opposing any such change. 

Up to 1793 no Roman Catholic in Ireland could vote 
for a member of the old Irish Parliament. In that year 
Roman Catholics secured the franchise, and all who paid 
rent of forty shillings and upwards per annum ($10) could 
vote, though only for a Protestant candidate. This law 
had been passed in the early days of the war with France, 
as a measure to allay discontent among the people. It had 
quite the opposite result. It put the whole country into a 
ferment. It encouraged bribery; it split large farms into 
small holdings ; it inflamed men's minds against their land- 
lords ; it stimulated the rebellion of 1 798 ; and, finally, it 
led to the extinguishment of that Parliament which the 
Home Rule party is now trying to restore. 

" The original condition of the Irish peasantry," says a 
writer on Ireland, " was not that of owners of the soil. A 
few hereditary chiefs (or kings, as they called themselves), 
having the power of fife and death, ruled the whole lower 
population as absolutely as a king in Central Africa. Eng- 
lish law raised the peasantry from this condition, and gave 
them the rights of Englishmen ; but no law on earth could 



LORD CASTLEKEAGH. 75 

give them equal industry, prudence, or perseverance. The 
English settlers grew rich, the Irish peasants continued 
savage and poor. They robbed, murdered, and rebelled ; 
were put down by the strong hand, and after every out- 
break they were punished by finding more and more of 
the soil of Ireland pass into the hands of those who sup- 
ported the rule of the English in that country. Not, how- 
ever, that these ' lands ' consisted of fertile fields, dotted 
with smiling villages. They were mostly vast green swamps, 
uncrossed by roads. The Celtic Irish never cultivated 
any arts, never carried on any commerce, never devoted 
themselves to agriculture." 

To put the case very briefly : English landlords by 
degrees took the place of native Irish chiefs, and hostility 
to landlords of an alien religion and an alien race had for 
three centuries been at the root of Irish troubles. 

With the sea all round their island, the Irish never 
were (nor are they now) sailors, adventurers, or even 
fishermen. They make gallant soldiers when disciplined, 
and work admirably for wages in gangs, when some supreme 
authority is set over them. National feeling in past times 
(whatever it may be at present) was directed to mali- 
ciously envying the prosperity of English colonists, and 
seeking measures to ruin them. In 1641, fifty thousand 
Protestants perished in that horrible Irish massacre (sixty- 
nine years after the St. Bartholomew) which was so sternly 
and so cruelly avenged by the iron hand of Cromwell. 
In 1 64 1, Ireland contained but a million of inhabitants. 
Under English rule in less than two centuries its popu- 
lation rose to be eight millions. It is now computed at 
less than five millions, owing to the famine of 1845-47 and 
the enormous emigration. 

The effect of new and untried political rights on the 
Roman Catholic peasantry of Ireland in 1793 was such 
that, combined with the sympathy of the Northern and 
ultra-Protestant part of the country for the principles of 
the French Revolution, the whole island became ripe for 
rebellion, which broke out in 1798. It was the result of a 



'J^ ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

combination between Protestant Dissenters in the North, 
and the Roman Catholic peasantry in the South : the 
insurgents called themselves the United Irishmen. The 
Irish Protestant militia, which had been armed to protect 
the island from French invasion, was employed to put down 
this rebellion, and committed all sorts of outrages and 
cruelties upon the Catholics. The rebellion cost in all 
about thirty thousand lives, and many millions of pounds 
sterUng. Its leaders were Wolfe Tone, Lord Edward 
Fitzgerald, and Thomas Addis Emmett. 

The Irish Parliament was wholly unable to cope with 
the rebellion ; but Lord Castlereagh, then head of the Gov- 
ernment in the absence of the Viceroy, took vigorous 
measures of repression. The rebellion was nipped in the 
bud ; but, had a projected French invasion under General 
Hoche taken place in 1798, instead of two years earlier, the 
fate of England and of Europe might have been to be de- 
plored. But the French fleet, like the Armada, was dis- 
persed by a storm. The conspirators betrayed each other. 
Emmett was banished to America. He was the only one 
of the leaders who seems to have united prudence with 
courage. Wolfe Tone escaped to France and took service 
under the Directory, returned afterwards to Ireland in a 
French uniform, with a party of French invaders under 
General Humbert,^ was taken, tried, condemned to death, 
and died by his own hand in prison. Lord Edward Fitz- 
gerald (son of the Duke of Leinster), after wandering 
about Ireland in woman's clothes, was betrayed by a lady 
named Reynolds.^ Lord Edward was wounded by his 
captors, and died of his wounds in prison. His wife was 
Pamela, — the adopted child of Madame de Genlis, brought 
up with the Orleans princess and princes. 

The vigor of Lord CornwalHs and the foresight of Lord 

^ The best account I know of the invasion of General Humbert 
may be found in Charles Lever's admirable novel, " Maurice Tierney." 

'^ She retired to Paris with her blood-money. In 1840 we met her 
frequently at English parties, where, at an advanced age, she waltzed 
indefatigably with her grandson. 



LORD CASTLEREAGH. 



77 



Castlereagh having broken up the rebellion and repulsed 
the French invaders, they proceeded to put an end to the 
Irish Parliament. To turn the Irish Catholics over to 
the ferocity of Protestant Orangemen, who composed that 
Parliament, seemed to more moderate English statesmen 
an act of inhumanity. To admit Catholics into the Irish 
Parliament, though Mr. Pitt approved the measure, was 
thought untimely and impracticable. It was therefore 
resolved to place Ireland under the milder rule of the 
Imperial Parliament, and to effect the Union. 

In those days, during the English struggle with France, 
a strong government in Ireland was indispensable to the 
safety of the British Empire. With a Protestant Irish 
Parliament that might goad the people to despair, or with 
a Catholic Parliament in sympathy with the headstrong 
disaffection of the people, and ready to ally Ireland with 
France, England would never have been safe from the 
chance of foreign invasion. How far the same reasons 
apply now is uncertain. In the event of a war, such a 
Parliament as Ireland might choose, within thirty miles of 
England, might well be dreaded. 

The Union of England and Ireland having been accom- 
plished by a vote of the Irish Parliament (individual mem- 
bers of which, it is said, were not above being influenced by 
the promises of Lord Castlereagh), that nobleman became 
a resident of London, and took office in the cabinet of 
1802. In 1805, the year after Mr. Pitt's return to power, 
he was made Secretary of War. 

Mr. Pitt died in 1806, and was succeeded by Lord Gren- 
ville, a moderate Whig who made Mr. Fox his Foreign 
Secretary. Fox died the same year as his great rival. 

In 1807, a Tory ministry, with Lord Castlereagh again as 
War Minister, and Mr. Canning as Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, came into power. Two years later, Castlereagh and 
Canning fought their celebrated duel. Lord Castlereagh 
lost a coat-button, and Mr. Canning was slightly wounded. 
Both gave up office and retired into private life. The duel 
led to no personal feud, though their views differed to the 



78 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

last on matters of public policy. Canning remained out 
of office until he was sent to Lisbon as ambassador extra- 
ordinary to welcome the King of Portugal on his return 
from Brazil. He declined to form part of Lord Liverpool's 
cabinet because Lord Castlereagh was leader of the House 
of Commons ; but he subsequently accepted office as the 
President of the Board of Control, This, however, he 
resigned, as he wished to take no part in the Queen's 
trial. 

Lord Castlereagh after the duel in 1809 remained for 
some time out of office. On the murder of Mr. Perceval, in 
181 2, Lord Liverpool became Prime Minister, and offered 
him Mr. Canning's place in the cabinet as Foreign Sec- 
retary. Under his administration the power of Napoleon was 
broken. He was himself the English representative at the 
Congress of Vienna. There a new map of Europe was 
made. The claims of the four Allied Powers (or rather 
three, for England made small demands upon the Congress) 
had to be satisfied, and at the same time what is called the 
balance of power had to be preserved. Therefore Russia 
was not allowed to take any steps to gain the coveted 
outlet of Constantinople, nor to acquire sufficient Polish 
territory to form an autonomous tributary kingdom. The 
French King of Sweden paid for his throne by relinquish- 
ing all claim to the ancient Duchy of Finland, which five 
years before had been annexed to Russia. Austria got all 
Northern Italy, whose people bitterly hated her sway. 
Prussia acquired fresh possessions on the Rhine, and Hol- 
land received Belgium. Prussia greatly desired to annex 
Saxony ; but only a part of it was accorded to her. Small 
portions of territory were carved out of Germany to satisfy 
the pretensions of various petty princes ; and in the end 
the Great Powers, England, Russia, Austria, France, and 
Prussia, bound themselves to defend each other's possessions 
should any one of them attempt at any future time to break 
this Treaty of Vienna. 

Before all this was fully concluded, Napoleon returned 
from Elba, and the labors of the Congress nearly went to 



LORD CASTLEREAGH. 79 

the winds. After Waterloo the Powers were even stronger 
than before, and worked their will in Europe with a higher 
hand. 

Lord Castlereagh, who by this time had no tenderness 
for what it is the fashion to call " peoples," but only con- 
sidered the rights of sovereigns, continued to guide the 
foreign affairs of England until his death. He was accused 
of keeping spies in his service, after the Continental sys- 
tem. He certainly put down every show of liberal feeling 
everywhere. 

Canning used to say that " no vigor of mind or body 
could stand the wear and tear of a minister's life over ten 
years." Lord Castlereagh had stood it thirty years, rising 
at five, and occupying himself with state business fourteen 
or fifteen hours a day. He succumbed at last to mental 
exhaustion, aggravated by depressing medicines that he 
took to check the gout. At a cabinet council he was ob- 
served to seem "very odd," and the Duke of Wellington 
wrote to him that evening to urge him to see his physician. 
He went down to his country place, whither the physician, 
by advice of the Duke, followed him. This gentleman 
early the next morning was summoned to his Lordship's 
chamber by a maid. He found the Marquis standing near 
a window in a strange posture, and exclaimed, "My dear 
Lord, why do you stand thus ? " The reply was, " Bankhead, 
let me fall upon your arm. It is all over ; " and he fell for- 
ward dead. He had cut his own throat. 

He was a tall, handsome man, with the appearance and 
the manners of one born to a high station. After his death 
the affairs of the Foreign Ofifice were put by Lord Liver- 
pool into the hands of Mr. Canning, in spite of the distaste 
for his services felt and professed by the King. 

Canning at once reversed his predecessor's policy of blind 
conservatism, and from that time the new era of progress 
set in. 

George Canning was born in London in 1770, and died 
fifty-seven years after, in 1827. His father was a gentleman 
of very small estate, and Canning was his only son. The 



80 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

father, who died when his child was in early boyhood, had 
offended his family by twice marrying beneath him. Can- 
ning's mother (his second wife) was an Irish lady of beauty 
and accomplishments, but of low origin. After his death 
she went on the stage for a time to support herself and her 
son. She subsequently married an actor, and on his death 
remarried with a linen-draper in a country town. 

Notwithstanding the somewhat plebeian character of 
these associations, Canning was educated by an uncle as a 
young aristocrat. He went to Eton, where he greatly dis- 
tinguished himself, not only in school, but out of it, by start- 
ing an Eton periodical called the " Microcosm." When still 
very young he went to Oxford, where his attainments won 
the notice of Sheridan, who predicted his success in public 
life. When, in 1793, he entered Parliament, it was as the 
follower of Mr. Pitt. He was the man Pitt most earnestly 
loved, and whom he designated as his successor. When 
about twenty-three he projected the "Anti-Jacobin," the 
object of which was " to ridicule and refute the theories 
of religion, government, and social economy propounded 
by the revolutionary leaders in France, and their friends 
and admirers in England." Its publication took place as a 
serial, and lasted about nine months. Hookham Frere and 
Canning were its chief writers. The contributors met in a 
small room at their printers' office, where each laid his man- 
uscripts open on the table for the correction of the others, 
Mr. Pitt contributed occasionally prose articles on finance, 
but its most celebrated piece was Canning's "Needy 
Knife-Grinder," a supposed conversation between the 
Knife-Grinder and a Friend of Humanity. 

In the last number of the "Anti-Jacobin" were some 
celebrated lines on Candor, ending, — 

" Give me th' avowed, th' erect, the manly foe : 
Bold I can meet — perhaps return the blow ; 
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, 
Save — save — O save me! — from a candid friend." 

Canning did not confine his poetical powers to the "Anti- 
Jacobin." His squibs on his political opponents were very 




GEORGE CANNING. 



MR. CANNING. 8 1 

good and very frequent. Addington was by him laughed 
out of office, and the parliamentary career of Mr. Whit- 
bread, the brewer, will be best remembered in connection 
with- the famous parody of his speech on the trial of Lord 
Melville in Westminster Hall.^ Nay, whilst head of the 
Foreign Office some of his most important despatches were 
written in rhyme. On one occasion, when a treaty of com- 
merce was being discussed between England and Holland, 
the English ambassador at The Hague was summoned from 
a state dinner to make out a despatch which had just been 
received in cipher at the legation. 

" In matters o£ commerce the fault of the Dutch 
Is giving too little and asking too much ; 
So, in order outrageous demands to prevent, 
We '11 clap on Dutch bottoms a twenty per cent." 

But these brilliant y'lfz/fx d' esprit were a hindrance rather 
than a help to Canning's political career. Even Sydney 
Smith jeered at him as " a clever writer of ephemeral news- 

^ I 'm like Archimedes for science and skill ; 

I 'm like a young Prince going straight up a hill ; 
I'm like (with respect to the fair, be it said), 
I 'm like a young lady just bringing to bed. 
If you ask why the first of July I remember 
More than April, or May, or June, or November, 
T 'was on that day, my Lords, with truth I assure ye, 
My sainted progenitor set up his brewery. 
On that day in the morn he began brewing beer; 
On that day he commenced his connubial career; 
On that day he renewed and he settled his bills ; 
On that day he cleaned out all the cash in his tills ; 
On that day, too, he died, having finished his summing, 
And the angels all cried " Here 's old Whitbread a-coming ! " 
So that day I still hail with a smile and a sigh, 
For his beer with an e, and his bier with an i\ 
And still on that day, in the hottest of weather. 
The whole Whitbread family dines all together. 
As long as the beams of this house shall support 
The roof which o'ershades this respectable court, 
As long as the light shall pour in through these windows 
Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos, 
My name shall shine bright as my ancestor's shines. 
Mine recorded in journals, his blazoned on signs. 
6 



82 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

paper productions, an extraordinary writer of small poetry," 
and not a large-minded statesman ; " and it is hardly sur- 
prising that the political representatives of the great houses 
loved not to be subordinate to the lively intellect of the son 
of an actress." 

Canning's bearing in society, too, was not calculated to 
favor his political advancement. " Pitt, cold, austere, and 
proud, disarmed the sense of rivalry ; Canning, on the con- 
trary, gay, easy, and elegant, the very life of society, pro- 
voked animadversions. The aristocracy of those times was 
apt to believe it ought to have a monopoly of those gifts, 
and to stare at the display of them in others as a species of 
impertinence." Canning either did not see this, or con- 
temptuously ignored it. 

He had always supported Catholic Emancipation, pro- 
vided the Catholics would give guarantees for good behavior. 
He had always advocated the emancipation of slaves in the 
West Indies. While Foreign Secretary, in 1808, he directed 
the British policy of opposing Napoleon in Spain. " If 
there is any part of my political hfe," he cried, "in which I 
glory, it is that in the face of every discouragement, diffi- 
culty, and prophecy of failure, mine was the hand which 
committed England to an alliance with Spain." 

In 1820 Mr. Canning formed part of Lord Liverpool's 
cabinet as President of the Board of Control. He declined, 
however, to take part in the proceedings of his colleagues at 
the time of the Queen's trial, and tendered his resignation 
to George IV., frankly stating his reasons at the same time. 
The King accepted his resignation with expressions of es- 
teem for his talents and his honesty, but for a long time 
afterwards he bore him a deep-seated personal grudge. 

His Majesty acquiesced with alacrity in Mr. Canning's 
appointment, in the summer of 1822, to the Governor- 
Generalship of India, hoping thus to send him into exile. 
Canning was on the eve of departing, when the death of 
Lord Castlereagh made a change in the ministry, and 
the Duke of Wellington proposed Canning to His Majesty 
as Minister for Foreign Affairs. A curious conversation is 
then said to have taken place. 



MR. CANNING. 83 

" ' Good Heavens, Arthur,' said the King, ' you don't mean to 
propose that fellow to me as Secretary for Foreign Affairs? It 
is impossible. I said on my word of honor as a gentleman he 
should never be one of my ministers again. You hear, Arthur? 
— on my word of honor as a gentleman ! I am sure you will 
agree with me. I can't do what I said on my word of honor I 
would tiot do.' ' Pardon me, sir, I don't agree with you at all. 
Your Majesty is not a gentleman.' The King started. ' Your 
Majesty, I say,' continued the imperturbable soldier, ' is not a 
gentleman, but the sovereign of England, with duties to your 
people far above any to yourself, and these duties make it 
imperative that you should at this time employ the abilities of 
]\Ir. Canning.' ' Well ! ' replied the King, drawing a long breath, 
'if I must, I must.' " 

A few weeks after this appointment some one asked the 
King how he liked his new Foreign Secretary ; to which he 
replied, " Like him, — that word is too weak, I love him ! " 

"Absorbed in public affairs and satisfied with his own select 
circle of admirers. Mr. Canning cared little for society at large," 
says Sir Henry Bulwer. " and in general confined his powers of 
pleasing (which were great) to his own set. But he set his 
heart on gaining George IV. 's good will; and what with fascin- 
ating Madame de Lieven, whose opinion as to the manners and 
capacity of any man in the world of fashion was so completely 
law that even George IV. was led by her (desirous as he was 
before all things to pose as a man of fashion), and what with 
reviving in the King memories of the briUiant days of his 
youth, when the wit of Sheridan sparkled at his table, and the 
eloquence of Fox rang in his ears, he succeeded entirely in 
overcoming the prejudices of the King, who had previously 
looked upon him as a clever literary politician, but not a 
statesman." 

Besides this, the King always had to be managed by his 
ministers, as we have seen in the instance of the Duke of 
Wellington ; and Canning was skilful in such management. 

In pursuance of his South American policy, of which I 
am about to speak. Canning found it desirable to send 
envoys to the newly acknowledged little republics. While 
he was considering how the King might be induced favor- 
ably to consider this matter, Lord Ponsonby returned from 



84 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

his mission to the Ionian Isles, very desirous of procuring 
promotion as a diplomatist. Some years before, there had 
been an early love affair between him and Lady Conyng- 
ham, the reigning favorite of George IV. at this period. 
Lady Conyngham, on beholding her old lover unexpectedly 
at a party, was overcome with emotion, and fainted away. 
At this the King grew jealous, and, as he always did in any 
love-trouble, took to his bed. All business was stopped. 
The King would see none of his ministers. At length, how- 
ever, Canning succeeded in obtaining an audience. George 
IV. received him, lying on his bed in a darkened room, the 
light being barely sufficient to read a paper. " What 's the 
matter?" he asked peevishly. "I am very ill, Mr. Can- 
ning." "I shall not occupy Your Majesty's attention more 
than five minutes. It is very desirable, as Your Majesty 
knows, to send envoys without delay to the States of South 
America that are about to be recognized. . . ." The King 
groaned, and moved impatiently. " I have been thinking, 
sir, that it would be most desirable to select a man of rank 
for one of these posts." Another groan. " And I thought 
of proposing Lord Ponsonby to Your Majesty for Buenos 
Ayres." "Ponsonby?" said the King, rising a little from 
his reclining position, — "a capital appointment ! A 
clever fellow, though an idle one, Mr. Canning. May I 
ask you to pull back that curtain a little? A very good 
appointment indeed. Is there anything else, Canning, that 
you would wish me to attend to? " " From that moment," 
says the private and authentic chronicle from which this 
anecdote is taken, " Canning's favor rose more and more 
rapidly at court." But what an opinion does it give us 
of the Majesty of England, who had to be managed like a 
spoilt child ! 

Canning, however, was in all things a true Englishman. 
On his return to the Foreign Office, in 1822, he wrote to 
Count Nesselrode, then Russian Minister for Foreign Afifairs, 
" You know what my principles are, and that where others 
have for a long time written « Europe,' I must be allowed to 
write ' England.' " 



MR. CANNING. 85 

He took an early opportunity of going counter to the 
Holy Alliance, — that system of Continental policy by which 
Russia, France, Prussia, and Austria bound themselves to 
stamp out every tendency to promote liberty, or to disturb 
the established order of things in Europe, wherever found. 
England did not formally join this alliance, but Lord Castle- 
reagh approved of it, and acted in harmony with its spirit. 

Spain was the first country that needed the repressing hand. 
Spanish patriots, under General Riego, rose against the 
feebly wicked old King Ferdinand, and forced him to grant 
them a constitution. The Holy Alliance interfered. France 
was deputed to put down Spanish patriotism, and to bring 
back the former state of things in the Peninsula. An army, 
under the Due d'Angouleme, was marched over the Pyren- 
nees, and despotic power was restored. 

But the Spanish colonies in Mexico and South America 
caught the revolutionary infection. Canning amazed Europe 
by recognizing them as independent Republics, saying, in a 
celebrated speech, " I resolved that if France had Spain, it 
should not be Spain with the Indies. I looked to America 
to correct the inequalities of Europe. I called a new world 
into existence to redress the inequalities of the old." 

From 1822 to the early months of 1827 Mr. Canning was 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs under the premiership of Lord 
Liverpool ; but one morning, at the close of February, Lord 
Liverpool fell on the floor of his breakfast-room in a fit, 
holding in his hand a letter which told him of the serious 
illness of Mr. Canning. He died in less than a week, and, 
after considerable opposition on the part of Mr. Peel and 
the Duke of Wellington, Canning was made Prime Minister. 
He died in less than six months afterwards, having never 
recovered from a cold caught in St. George's Chapel, Wind- 
sor, at the funeral of the Duke of York, while waiting two 
nours for the royal mourners. 

His last act was signing the Treaty of London, which 
secured partial independence to Greece. 

"As a statesman he was liberal, wise, consistent, and inde- 
pendent. The three great acts of his foreign policy were the 



86 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

recognition of the South American States, the maintenance of 
constitutional government in Portugal, and the treaty on behalf 
of Greece." 

In domestic politics he uniformly supported Catholic 
Emancipation, and opposed Parliamentary Reform. 

"His eloquence was persuasive and impassioned, his reason- 
ing clear and to the point, his manner was extraordinarily 
graceful, and his wit brilliant above all. He had married a 
rich wife, but he died poor. He is buried in Westminster 
Abbey, where a beautiful statue of him in the act of making a 
speech stands facing that of Mr. Pitt, England's still greater 
commoner." 

Canning died in August, 1827, and was succeeded as 
Prime Minister by the Duke of Wellington. 

The Duke — for he was for long years called The Duke, 
par excellence — was the fourth son of Lord Mornington, born 
in Ireland, 1769, — the same year as Napoleon and Lord 
Castlereagh. The three great British celebrities of whom 
this chapter treats were all Irishmen ; for though the Canning 
family claimed its origin from a famous Mayor of Bristol, it 
had been settled at Garvagh, in County Derry, since the days 
of Queen Elizabeth. The Duke was sent to school at Eton, 
and afterwards to a French military academy at Angers. 
He went very early into the army as an ensign, and was em- 
ployed in various services which offered no opportunity to 
attain distinction, until, when he was twenty-eight years old, 
his brother. Lord Wellesley, who had made himself prominent 
in England as a statesman, was sent out to India as Gover- 
nor-General. At that time the English were involved in a 
war with Hyder Ali and his son, Tippoo Sahib. Lord Welles- 
ley brought his brother into notice by giving him employ- 
ments in which his abilities would meet the public eye. He 
did well in everything he undertook, and at the age of thirty- 
four found himself a major-general and a victorious com- 
mander at the important battle of Assaye. 

On his return to England he was for some time without 
employment, till, by the influence of Lord Casdereagh, he 
was sent to the Peninsula. The Duke of York had wanted 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 87 

that command for himself, and thenceforward he became 
WeUington's personal enemy. Indeed, Wellington was 
always unpopular with the princes of the Royal Family, his 
greatness overshadowing theirs. 

He was thwarted and worried while in command in Por- 
tugal, and supplies were withheld from his army by the 
Government ; and at last, at the very moment of success, he 
was superseded by Sir Hew Dalrymple, a very inferior com- 
mander. Public clamor, however, on his return to England 
was so great that he was sent back to Portugal with rein- 
forcements, and fought his closely contested campaigns 
against Soult and Mass^na. 

He was at the Congress of Vienna when Napoleon came 
back from Elba, and was at once put in command of the 
allied armies that were collected in all haste to oppose the 
Man of Destiny. Wellington had been sent to the Congress 
that he might escape assassination in Paris, where a plot had 
been formed to put him out of the way. 

My father sailed from London for America in June, 18 15, 
in the first regular packet-ship that crossed the ocean after 
the conclusion of the War of 181 2. While in the Downs 
they got a newspaper containing the Duke's first despatches 
from the field of Waterloo. These despatches were so un- 
like the vaunting bulletins which the public was accustomed 
to receive from Napoleon after a victory that the passengers 
concluded that it was " Boney," after all, who had won the 
day, and that the Duke's despatches were intended to make 
the best of a defeat. In consequence, they made the whole 
voyage, of nearly fifty days, under this impression, specu- 
lating among themselves as to what would probably be 
the fate of Europe, and the next step of the imperial 
conqueror. 

Speaking of Waterloo, I may perhaps be allowed to tell 
here a little anecdote of those times, showing what report- 
ers were to the great financial houses. News of the victory 
was of course despatched at once to Louis XVIII. , who was 
at Ghent, and was sent also by Captain Percy, an especial 
messenger, to ministers in England. The Rothschilds had 



88 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

their own agent on the watch, and he thought his best plan 
would be to station hinaself at Ghent, and watch for the 
news that might be sent to the French King. He therefore 
hired a room opposite the house in which the French royal 
family were quartered, and kept a sharp eye on the move- 
ments of His Majesty. 

On the eventful evening the King gave a dinner-party. 
In the midst of it the Rothschilds' agent saw a courier 
covered with dust gallop up to the door. Through the 
open windows, all a blaze of light, he saw the King sum- 
moned from the dinner-table, saw him receive a paper, 
saw him read it, saw him fling his arms about the courier 
and kiss him on both cheeks, then saw him return briskly 
to his guests at table. That was enough. The Roths- 
childs' agent had a carriage and a boat in readiness. He 
was off. He had fair winds. He reached London some 
hours in advance of Captain Percy. The Rothschilds 
received him rapturously, and made instant use of his 
information. Then they deemed it their duty to take 
him to the ministers in Downing Street. These gentle- 
men did not beUeve his story. In fact, what had he seen? 
"Have you told us all?" said one of the ministers, when 
he had several times repeated what he had to say. "All, 
except one thing," said the reporter. *■' I saw the King 
hug the courier and kiss him on both cheeks." "Why 
did you not tell us that before?" asked one of the noble- 
men present. "I did not like to mention it. It seemed 
so un-English, so un-kingly." "That confirms his report, 
however," said the other. "I know Louis XVIII. If he 
would hug and kiss a dirty courier, the news he brought 
must have been favorable and great." 

By midnight Captain Percy had arrived. He went first 
to the Prime Minister's house, then to that of the Secretary 
of War. Not finding either of them at home, he followed 
the secretary to a ball, where, after he had delivered his 
despatches, he was dragged, dusty and travel-worn, into the 
ball-room, to tell his tidings ; above all, what he knew of 
the lists of killed and wounded. Five minutes after, the 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 89 

house was empty. The guests, without waiting for their 
carriages, had dispersed to tell the news. 

After Waterloo there were no honors that nations or 
sovereigns could confer that were not showered on the 
Duke of Wellington, At the Congress of Verona he had 
a guard of honor, like sovereign princes. He was made 
Duke of Wellington ; Duke of Cuidad Rodrigo ; Grandee 
of the First Class in Spain ; Duke of Vittoria in Portugal ; 
and Prince of Waterloo in the Netherlands ; Knight of the 
Garter; Grand Cross of the Bath; Field-Marshal of the 
Army ; colonel of two regiments ; constable of the Tower ; 
Warden of the Cinque Ports ; and he was in receipt of 
^250,000 a year. He was also Field-Marshal in the 
Portuguese, Spanish, Netherlandish, Russian, Austrian, and 
Prussian services. Apsley House was built for him. The 
kings of Prussia and Saxony sent him magnificent porce- 
lain ; the City of London gave him a shield of massive 
silver, three feet in diameter, with representations of his 
victories, in relief; and the ladies of England presented him 
a colossal bronze statue of a nude Achilles, which they 
placed before his windows at Apsley House. 

Besides this he was made, after the death of the Duke of 
York, commander-in-chief of the English army, was treated 
by Queen Victoria rather as an uncle than a subject, and 
her third son, Arthur Patrick, the Duke of Connaught, was 
named for him. As he rode daily through the London 
streets on horseback, all hats were Hfted to him as if to 
royalty, and with his finger to his hat he returned their 
salutations. " I saw the Duke this morning," seemed to 
every man who said it to set a mark upon the day. 

I had a good view of him once, when, in the spring of 
1848, I went to the House of Lords to see the Queen 
prorogue Parliament. He came into the House early, 
when there were few peers there. He was in Field-Mar- 
shal's uniform, with all his orders on ; but over his red 
coat he wore a light gray overcoat like those familiar 
to us in pictures of Napoleon. I was surprised to see 
that he was so small a man. He could not have been 
more than five feet six, — the same height as Napoleon. 



90 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel (then Mr. 
Peel) formed part of Lord Liverpool's administration ; but 
on his death they refused to serve under Mr. Canning. 
They knew that he favored Catholic Emancipation, and 
they were not prepared to follow him. Catholic Eman- 
cipation, Parliamentary Reform, and questions of the 
currency were the three topics that agitated England at 
that day. 

A brief ministry under Lord Goodrich succeeded Mr. 
Canning's; but in January, 1828, the Duke of Wellington 
was gazetted as First Lord of the Treasury, — in other words, 
Prime Minister, — and the more liberal Tories, who had 
belonged to the ministries of Lord Liverpool and Mr. 
Canning, made no difficulty in joining him. His cabinet 
contained, among other statesmen, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. 
Goldbourn, and Mr. Huskisson. A quarrel took place 
between the latter and the Duke of Wellington, which 
led in the end to Mr. Huskisson' s sad death, as I shall 
tell hereafter. 

Many people in England felt as if the English constitu- 
tion and the Protestant religion had received their death- 
blow when, unexpectedly, the Duke of Wellington and his 
colleague. Peel, declared themselves in favor of Catholic 
Emancipation. Mr. Pitt had advocated it as far back as 
1800; but the dread of bringing another attack of insanity 
on George HI., who considered that to grant civil rights 
to Catholics was a violation of his coronation oath, kept 
him from pressing the measure. Mr. Canning's heart was 
set on carrying the Catholic Relief Bill through ParUament, 
and by the concession of a just claim pacifying, as he 
hoped, the people of Ireland. He died on the eve of 
its attainment ; but the Duke and Peel, to the disgust and 
consternation of many of their adherents, took up the 
measure and carried it through. The excitement through- 
out England was intense. The Duke of Cumberland posed 
as defender of the Protestant faith. But in spite of the 
exertions of himself and of his party, the bill was carried 
through Parliament, and received the royal signature, 
George IV. saying, as he put his name to it, " that his 




DUKE OF IVELLIXGTON. 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 9 1 

feelings and sentiments with respect to the measure were 
unaltered, and that he never before affixed his name with pain 
and regret to any Act of the Legislature " (April 13, 1829). 

Catholic Emancipation having been passed, the next 
measure to agitate the United Kingdom was the Reform of 
Parliament ; but this must form the subject of another chap- 
ter. Meantime let me tell of the death of Mr. Huskisson. 

Edward Cartwright (brother of Major Cartwright, a man 
who lived all his life under the stigma of being an advanced 
radical, because, in 1774, he advocated in some very cele- 
brated letters that the American colonies should have local 
legislatures) spent the last thirty years of his life experi- 
menting on carriages to be run on ordinary roads by steam. 
He died in 1824, without bringing his invention to any 
practical use ; but when George Stephenson started his 
project of carriages propelled by steam on iron rails, Mr. 
Huskisson warmly advocated the experiment, and from his 
place in Parliament supported the bill to authorize the con- 
struction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad. It 
was during the discussion of this bill that Sir Isaac Coffin 
made a speech denouncing the project '' as a most flagrant 
imposition. He would not consent," he said, — 

" to see widows' premises and their strawberry-beds invaded. 
Railroad trains would take many hours to perform the journey 
between Liverpool and Manchester, and in the event of the 
scheme's success, what, he would like to ask, was to be done for 
all those who had advanced money in making and repairing turn- 
pike roads ? What with those who might still wish to travel in 
their own or hired carriages, after the fashion of their forefath- 
ers ? What was to become of coachmakers, harness-makers, 
coachmasters, and coachmen, inn-keepers, horse-breeders, and 
horse-dealers ? Was the House aware of the smoke and the noise, 
the hiss and the whirl, which locomotive engines, passing at the 
rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, would occasion ? Neither 
the cattle ploughing in the fields, nor grazing in the meadows, 
could behold them without dismay. Iron would be raised in 
price one hundred per cent, or more probably be exhausted alto- 
gether. It would be the greatest nuisance, the most complete 
disturber of quiet and comfort, in all parts of the kingdom, that 
the ingenuity of man could invent." 



92 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

But Mr. Huskisson, member for Liverpool, pressed the 
motion, and the bill was carried by a vote of about two 
to one. 

After incredible difficulties of construction, the Liverpool 
and Manchester Railway was ready to be opened September 

5, 1830.1 

" Its completion was regarded as a great national event, and 
the ceremonies for the opening were arranged accordingly. The 
Duke of WeUington, then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, 
Secretary of State, and Mr. Huskisson, M.P. for Liverpool, 
were foremost among the number of distinguished persons pres- 
ent. Part of the show was to be a procession of the eight loco- 
motive engines, — the Northumberland, Phoenix, North Star, 
Rocket, Dart, Comet, Arrow, and Meteor. At Parkside, about 
seventeen miles from Liverpool, the trains stopped, that the en- 
gines might take in water. The Northumberland, with the car- 
riage containing the Duke of Wellington, was drawn up on the 
right hand track, that the other seven engines might pass in review 
on the other track before him. Mr. Huskisson had alighted from 
his carriage, and was standing on the track along which the 
Rocket was rapidly approaching. At this moment the Duke of 
Wellington, between whom and Mr. Huskisson a coolness had 
existed since their disagreement which had been followed by Mr. 
Huskisson's resignation from the ministry, made a sign of recog- 

1 A week earlier, August 28, 1830, the first trial trip with steam 
took place on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which was to carry out 
Washington's favorite idea of uniting the Atlantic seaboard with the 
Ohio River. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was exceedingly crooked ; 
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was nearly straight. The firsc 
steam-engine placed on it had been constructed under the direction of 
Mr. Peter Cooper, of New York. It dragged one car, containing twenty- 
three passengers, and attained the wonderful celerity of twelve to fif- 
teen miles an hour. The car was made light, and was entirely open. 
It nmch resembled the high carts that carry empty barrels. The trial 
trip, as we can well imagine, was an exceedingly exciting one. The 
curves were passed without difficulty at fifteen miles an hour. A man 
riding a swift horse undertook to race the engine from Baltimore to 
where the road terminated at Ellicott's Mills, fourteen miles from the 
city. In the height of the race the band slipped off the fly-wheel of 
the engine, and the horse won ! The directors and their friends 
were, however, elated at their success; and when the little engine, for 
a few moments, made eighteen miles an hour, one of them exclaimed 
that he should record it in a book, to be transmitted to posterity 1 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 93 

nition, and held out his hand. A hurried but friendly grasp was 
given; but before it was loosened, a cry arose of ' Get in, get 
in ! ' Alarmed and confused, Mr. Huskisson endeavored to get 
round the open door of the Duke's carriage ; in so doing he was 
struck down by the Rocket, and, falling with his leg across the 
track, the limb was instantly crushed. His first words on being 
raised were, ' I have met my death ! ' He was carried into a 
house near by, and only lived a few hours." 

The accident threw a deep gloom over the day's proceed- 
ings. The Duke and Sir Robert Peel were anxious to dis- 
continue the procession ; but, in view of the thousands of 
people waiting to see the train come in at Manchester, it 
was decided to continue the journey. There was, however, 
no further festivity. 

Next day a train started from Liverpool to Manchester, 
carrying forty passengers, and did the distance in the allotted 
time, — two hours. Since that time there has been no 
interruption to the daily trains. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE REFORM BILL. LORD ALTHORP. LORD BROUGHAM. 

WILLIAM COBBETT. 

"TV /TEN and women in England younger than myself have 
■^*^ probably no realizing conception of the intense 
excitement produced throughout the country from 1828 to 
1832 by the agitation of the Reform Bill, — that bill which, 
as some one phrased it, seemed to the populace " a bill for 
giving everybody everything ; " that bill upon whose fate all 
hopes or fears were concentrated ; that bill which, though 
its passage quieted the country for a time, made far less 
difference in practical politics than had been expected, 
though it was an enormous stride forward in the march of 
progress, which has to keep abreast of the spirit of 
the times. 

There is no better illustration to me, as I think over those 
days and recall the agitation of England, of how all classes 
and all ages caught the fever of politics, than to remem- 
ber how I — a child of eight in 1830 — was encouraged 
by my mother to produce my first literary composition ; 
viz. two numbers of what we called "The Nursery Gazette." 
Well I remember standing by my mother's side and dic- 
tating it ! Here are some of its contents. I give them as 
a specimen of the feelings of the day, of the hourly talk 
that interested and excited even the youngest members of 
a quiet household. 

" Nursery Gazette," November 14, 1830 : — 
Politics. — We are happy to inform our readers that the 
prospects of the country are a little brighter. The funds have 
risen, owing to the report, it is imagined, that the Duke of 
Wellington was going to resign. This, however, has not yet 
taken place. Kent is a little more quiet; but the fires, we 



THE REFORM BILL. 95 

regret to say, are beginning to spread into Essex and Sussex. 
On Tuesday afternoon two respectably dressed men in a ba- 
rouche stopped a boy and inquired : " Who is your master ? " 
To which he rephed, " Master Sherwin, sir." " Tell him to 
keep a good look-out," said they, and rode on. About ten 
o'clock at night Mr. Sherwin's barns and outhouses were set 
on fire. The boy had told his master, but it created no alarm, 
and was not attended to. 

The " Nursery Gazette" No. 2, November 21, 1830 : — 

Politics. — We are happy to inform our readers that the 
Duke of WeUington has really resigned, as well as the other 
ministers. This has had a good effect, not only upon the coun- 
try, but on the two patients mentioned in our last,^ who have 
almost entirely recovered their health and spirits. The fires 
in Kent still continue to burn with unremitted fury, and we 
are sorry to add they are now fast spreading into Suffolk. For 
our own part, we do not blame the peasantry for using some 
means to obtain support ; but they ought not to use violence, for 
we do not see what good they can possibly gain by it. 

We regret to state that we shall not be able to publish 
another number next week, the printer having refused to 
perform his part of the " Nursery Gazette." 

Which meant that my mother, very sensibly, finding that 
the " Nursery Gazette " was getting talked about (my father 
being but too ready to spread its fame), thought that 
editorial notoriety at eight years old was by no means 
good for her little girl. Indeed, a female taste for literary 
work was a thing in those days by no means to be encour- 
aged in a demoiselle Men elevee. 

Of course all the ideas in the "Nursery Gazette" were 
the result of the general excitement upon politics, which 
penetrated even into the nursery. 

The state of things prevailing in England at the date of 
my infant paper was the offspring of the terror created by 
the great French Revolution. The men and women of my 
childhood had grown up under its influence. 

1 My father and his chief political opponent, Mr. Roop, paymaster 
of the garrison at Ipswich. I had announced in No. i tliat both of them 
were suffering from a political fever. 



96 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" Nine-tenths of the English people," says Walter Bagehot, 
" were above all things determined to put down what they 
called French principles ; and, unhappily, French principles 
included what we should now all consider obvious reforms. 
They would not even allow the extreme cruelties of the penal 
code to be mitigated ; they did not wish justice to be ques- 
tioned ; they would not let the mass, of the people be educated, 
or at least only so far that it came to nothing; they would not 
alter anything that came down from their ancestors, for in their 
terror they did not know but there might be some charmed 
value even in the most insignificant thing ; and, after what they 
had seen happen in France, they feared that if they changed a 
single iota, all would collapse." 

Then, too, the national hatred of Napoleon connected 
itself with this hatred of revolutionary principles. Napo- 
leon was really the man vv^ho set himself in his great might 
to stem the tide of revolution, to reconstruct society, and 
bring order out of chaos ; for w^hich reason it is now the 
fashion for ultra-republicans in France to deny him and 
decry him. But in England, long after I began to think 
for myself, the popular idea was, that he had been a raging 
Jacobin, a Robespierre a cheval. 

"A war-time, too, is naturally a hard time," said Mr. 
Bagehot ; " men's minds grow familiarized with cruelty by 
pain. Suffering seems inevitable. The effort is made, not 
to alleviate it, but to bear it." 

When the Great War was closed, innumerable industries 
had been stopped. The price of land in England went 
down enormously; many landed proprietors were ruined. 
With landlords pinched, laborers suffered. Trade sufifered 
from the uncertainties of commerce and of credit. The 
working-classes were in a chronic state of suffering, and 
the savage spirit that lies latent in the breasts of English- 
men showed itself at its worst. Suffering, of course, led to 
complaint, complaint was called sedition. I remember 
well the panic among the gentlefolks of Ipswich and its 
neighborhood when an assembly of working-men — labor- 
ers and others — met on Rustmere Heath to have a con- 
ference with the gentry. My father said that what he saw 



THE REFORM BILL. 97 

that day was very pitiful, — a crowd of aimless, dispirited, 
hungry wretches, bent on impressing the gentry with a 
sight of their sufferings. On Rustmere Heath there was 
no attempt at violence ; but in many places it was otherwise. 
The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, harsh laws were 
passed, and a sterner administration of justice was invoked 
to put all complaint (even the most reasonable) sternly 
down, li would not be put downj it incessantly smoul- 
dered and incessantly broke out, and for four years Eng- 
land was filled with the fear of violence, first by the 
breakers of law, and then by the defenders of it. 

As I write, it seems to me that my childish notion con- 
tained the gist of the situation : that it was not surprising 
suffering men should seek some means of improving their 
condition^ but that lawless violence would do no good. 

The panacea for all social evils was supposed to lie in the 
Reform Bill. In one sense it did lie in the Reform Bill, 
because the passage of that measure restored confidence 
and calmed excitement ; and " in quietness and confidence 
shall be your strength," is as true of nations as of individual 
Christians. But the Reform Bill of 1832 politically benefited 
only that class which corresponds to the French botirgeoisie. 
The era of 1830 was the especial era of advancement for 
such men. All the revolutions of that year upon the Con- 
tinent were in their favor, and so was the differently con- 
ducted revolution of 1832 in England. 

The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, though 
they had adopted, and successfully carried, the bill for 
Catholic Emancipation, in opposition to the larger half of 
their own (the Tory) party, were opposed, as Mr. Canning 
had been, to the proposed measures of Parliamentary Re- 
form. George IV. died in the summer of 1830, and in 
August of the same year Charles X. of Prance came again 
as an exile to claim English hospitality. 

Let me briefly endeavor to point out what was the Reform 
Bill. The English House of Commons consists of over six 
hundred members. These are elected from counties, from 
the Universities, and from boroughs, — boroughs meaning 

7 



98 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

places inhabited by burgesses ; in other words, incorporated 
towns. In the days of the Barons and in the Wars of the 
Roses, Parhamentary representation was ill-defined and 
irregular. The House of Commons " struggled up," as it 
were, till it became a mighty power in the state. Like 
Topsy, the system had in some mysterious manner "growed." 
It was by no means always an acceptable position to be 
chosen a member of Parliament for a borough. " In those 
days," says a "Quarterly" reviewer, "the right of represen- 
tation was regarded as an oppressive burden, from which the 
smaller boroughs frequently petitioned to be set free ; " and, 
with the connivance of the sheriff, they not seldom evaded 
the exercise of their privilege. Furthermore, down to the 
time of the Reform Bill the qualifications for voters differed 
in different boroughs. In some, there was universal suf- 
rage ; in some, only the mayor and bailiffs voted ; in many, 
all tax-payers had the franchise ; in some, only the free 
burgesses ; in some, freeholders. The Reform Bill pro- 
posed to make the qualification for voting for a borough 
member the ownership of a house in the borough of the 
clear yearly value of not less than ;^io, provided such 
person should have paid the poor-rates and assessed taxes, 
also to give votes to those who paid a yearly rent of ^lo. 
This necessarily gave an immense increase of power to petty 
tradesmen. It swamped the previous importance of the 
cultivated classes. It did nothing, or less than nothing, for 
the laboring population, — for there is never any love lost 
between small capitalists and the poor ; while the disfran- 
chisement of " rotten boroughs "— z. e., boroughs in which 
there were few or no voters to cast their votes — did away 
with the practice of Government to watch Oxford and 
Cambridge for young men of promise, that they might be 
brought into Parliament as supporters of the ministry. 
Under this system Macaulay one day at breakfast opened 
a letter which, to his surprise, offered him a seat in Parlia- 
ment. Gibbon relates that, " as he was destroying an army 
of barbarians," a minister of the Crown called and offered 
him a seat in the House of Commons. It was the aim of 



THE REFORM BILL. 99 

Statesmen to build up a governing class in those days, and 
the House of Commons always contained members who 
from education or sympathy took on themselves the duty 
of looking after especial national interests. 

In the days of Sir Robert Walpole and the years that 
succeeded his administration the possession of a " pocket 
borough " — which was another phrase frequently employed 
— was very valuable to its proprietor. Even in the novels 
of the day we see that to offer a borough to the Govern- 
m.ent was a common and not discreditable way of obtaining 
favors. It was estimated that one hundred and twenty- 
seven lords and gentlemen had the choosing of three hun- 
dred and fifty-five members of Parliament. The most 
complete instance of a rotten borough must have been 
Lugershall, the member for which rose in the House of 
Commons and said : " I am the proprietor of Lugershall ; I 
am the member for Lugershall ; I am the constituency of 
Lugershall ; and in all these capacities I consent to the dis- 
franchisement of Lugershall." 

That retirement of the Duke of Wellington in 1830, which 
as an infant journalist I appear to have approved, made 
way for Lord Grey, who was pledged to bring forward a Re- 
form Bill. A great revolution had just been accomphshed 
in France without any reign of terror, and the advocates 
for reform were greatly encouraged. It had been said to 
Lord Grey that success depended upon making the bill 
sweeping enough and very comprehensive. Here is an ac- 
count of its first announcement to the House of Commons, 
given by an eye-witness, John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards 
Lord Broughton), Byron's hfe-long friend : — 

"At last came the great day, Tuesday, March i, 1831. I 
went to the House at twelve o'clock, and found all the benches 
crammed. . . . Lord John Russell began to speak at six, and 
then never shall I forget the astonishment of my neighbors as 
he developed his plan of reform. Indeed, all the House seemed 
perfectly astounded; and when he read the long list of the 
boroughs to be wholly or partially disfranchised, there was a 
sort of mild ironical laughter, mixed with expressions of delight 



100 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

from the late Tory ministers, who seemed to think themselves 
sure of recovering their places immediately. Our own friends 
were not so well pleased. One of them, turning to me, said, 
' They are mad ! — they are mad ! ' And others made use of 
similar exclamations, — all but Sir Robert Peel. He looked 
serious and angry, as if he had discovered that ministers by the 
boldness of their measure had secured the support of the coun- 
try. Lord John seemed rather to play with the fears of his 
audience, and after detailing some clauses which seemed to 
complete the scheme, smiled and paused, and then said, ' More 
yet.' . . . When Lord John sat down, we who were advanced 
Liberals cheered loud and long, although there was scarcely one 
of us who believed that such a scheme could by any possibility 
become the law of the land. . . . We all huddled away, not 
knowing what to think ; the anti-reformers chuckling with 
delight at what they deemed a wholly impracticable project, and 
the friends of the ministers in a state of bewilderment." 



The English parliamentary idea differs from that of the 
United States in several particulars ; in the latter country 
Members of Congress represent their own districts, and take 
especial charge of the interests of their own constituents ; 
in England, while each member represents a county or a 
borough, he is supposed rather to fight for the general inter- 
ests of the country than for local interests. Before the Reform 
Bill passed, in 1832, each county sent two members to Parlia- 
ment, except Yorkshire, which sent four. These gentlemen 
were officially called Knights of the Shire. The Reform Bill 
greatly increased the county representation in England, from 
ninety-four members to one hundred and fifty-nine. Fifty- 
six boroughs, which had sent two members each to Parlia- 
ment, were disfranchised. Thirty, which had sent two 
members to Parliament, were reduced to one. Eighteen 
large towns, which, risen to importance since Queen EHza- 
beth's time, and had never returned a member, were now 
to have two representatives in Parliament. The outly- 
ing parts of London, with a population over a million, 
were divided into four electoral districts, — Lambeth, 
Marylebone, Finsbury, and the Tower Hamlets, — each of 
which was to elect two members. Ireland received five 



THE HE FORM BILL. lOI 

additional members, and Scotland five, besides which the 
elective franchise in Scotland was largely extended, being 
placed on the same footing as England. 

To do away with " rotten boroughs " was a principal ob- 
ject of the Reform Bill. The monstrous character of the 
borough of Old Sarum has been frequently mentioned ; its 
name was, indeed, a sort of war-cry among reformers. It 
had once been a Bishop's See, and the site of a cathedral, — 
afterwards removed to Salisbury, — and had returned two 
members to Parliament for years after the twenty-three acres 
on which it formerly stood had not a house or an inhabitant. 

In England, a county or a borough may choose its mem- 
ber of Parliament from anywhere.^ Mr. Gladstone, who is 
not a Scotchman, sat in Parliament for many years as mem- 
ber for Midlothian. No member of Parliament can resign 
his seat unless disqualified to retain it by the acceptance of 
a place of honor and profit under the Crown, or by some 
public disgrace. If he accepts an office under Government 
he must, if he wishes to retain his seat, go through another 
election to ascertain if his constituents approve of his join- 
ing the administration. If a member desires to give up 
his seat, he therefore accepts the Chiltern Hundreds, a 
small office under Government, with a salary of twenty 
shillings ($5 ) a year ; and then he has to quit the House 
of Commons. 

The members of the House all wear their hats except 
when speaking, — a token that they acknowledge no superior 
under their own roof. The Speaker sits in gown and wig ; 
the members are seated upon benches. On the right of 
the Speaker are the Government, or Treasury, benches, on 
which sit all the members of the cabinet. Opposite to them 
sit the leading members of the Opposition. Behind the 
Government benches sit the supporters of the Government ; 
behind the Opposition leaders, their friends. Members 
speak from their places, and without their hats.^ 

^ It was proposed once to return my father as member for Brighton, 
— a place he had rarely, if ever, been in in his life. 

2 When I saw the House of Commons in session in St. Stephen's, 
in 1S43, ^^^ member speaking (Sir Charles Napier) had his hat filled 



102 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

It was more than a year after the first reading of the Re- 
form Bill before the measure was carried. A bill has to be 
three times read and voted on in England. In 1831 the 
second reading passed by a majority of one, and the scene 
in the House when, on March 22, three hundred and two 
members voted Aye, and three hundred and one No, was 
breathlessly exciting. Before the third reading the Govern- 
ment was defeated on another motion by a small majority, 
and Lord Grey determined to dissolve Parliament and appeal 
to the sense of the country. This resolve was greatly opposed 
by William IV., who was now King. He had been a Whig 
while Duke of Clarence, alwa5fs voting in the House of 
Lords with that party ; but as King he looked upon so great 
a change in popular representation as revolutionary. In a 
paper which even his opponents called " able " he said 
(and his words seem almost like a prophecy) : — 

" The King conceives that the most strenuous advocates of 
Reform, tliose whose object it may be to introduce a preponder- 
ance of popular influence, will not be disposed to deny that the 
influence of the House of Commons has increased more than 
that of the Crown or the House of Peers ; and the question is, 
Whether greater danger is not to be apprehended from its 
encroachments than from any other evil which may be the 
subject of speculation ; and whether it is not from this source 
that the mixed form of government in this country has to dread 
annihilation ? " 

There was a strong court party opposed to the passage of 
the bill, to Lord Grey, and to his ministry. The excitement 
through the country (and I well remember it) was intense ; 
there was mob violence all over England, and in London 
and at Ascot personal insults were offered, not only to the 
King, but to Queen Adelaide, who was popularly supposed 
to use all her influence to persuade the King to obstruct 
the bill. 

with oranges. Ladies had then to occupy a little space wide as a 
pew, and, sitting on a seat as high and narrow as a mantelpiece, look 
through the ventilators. It is against the law for strangers, even 
reporters, to be present, and therefore, by a fiction, members are 
supposed not to see them. 




KING WILLIAM IV. 



THE REFORM BILL. 103 

The new Parliament assembled June 14, 183 1. In Sep- 
tember the bill passed its third reading in the House, and 
was sent up to the Lords. They rejected it by a vote ot 
one hundred and ninety-nine to one hundred and fifty-eight. 
Lord Grey and his ministry resigned. The Duke of Wel- 
lington and his friends were called to take their place ; but 
the Duke could not form a cabinet. Lord Grey resumed 
office. Again a Reform Bill, slightly altered, passed the 
House of Commons, twenty-three new Whig Peers were 
created, — the first time such a step had been resorted 
to by any ministry, — and, to help the passage of the bill, 
about a hundred Tory Lords, unwilling to vote for it, 
absented themselves from the House of Peers. The bill 
then passed both Houses, and recei\^ed the King's reluctant 
signature on June 7, 1832. During several months the 
vacillations of King William IV. had caused much trouble. 

He was a thoroughly honest, kind-hearted man, and a 
good man of business, conscientiously endeavoring to under- 
stand every paper that he signed. But his eccentricity, 
especially under excitement, seems almost to have amounted 
to insanity, and in the early months of his reign London 
society made merry over accounts of his strange behavior. 

He affected blunt manners. He used naval slang, though 
he had never been a favorite with the navy. He made the 
most extraordinary speeches in public ; in private he would 
electrify his company by exclaiming, " I am tired. I wish 
you a good night. I am going to bed. Come along, my 
Queen." '' Altogether," says Charles Greville, who, how- 
ever, took delight in reporting the poor monarch's eccen- 
tricities, " he seems a kind-hearted, well-meaning, not 
stupid, burlesque, bustling old fellow, and if he does n't go 
mad may make a very decent king." 

He particularly hated France, and used to alarm his 
ministers by the speeches he made about her on public 
occasions. His bete noire, however, was Russia, and he 
dreaded lest she should invade his kingdoms. In view 
of such an invasion he was anxious to resuscitate the old 
militia. Every now and then he would have a spurt of 



104 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

irritable self-assertion. In the last months of his life he 
was particularly put out with the Duchess of Kent, and 
treated her on one occasion, before her daughter and his 
guests, in a manner wholly unbecoming a king and a 
gentleman. 

In 1867 — that is, thirty-five years after the passage of 
the first Reform Bill — further Parliamentary reforms were 
introduced in England. The ;^io quahfication was re- 
duced to forty shillings, so that any man who has a family 
can vote for the member for his borough. This approaches 
very near to universal suffrage. It has swamped the ^10 
bourgeoisie. The year 1830, and those that followed, were 
the favored period everywhere for the bourgeois ; the day 
of the prolitaire, or the man who labors with his own 
hands, was postponed to our own times. All civilized 
Europe and America have got to deal with that problem 
now. It has been storing up for many years for us to 
solve it. God grant we may meet it as successfully as the 
generation of my youth did that which was presented in 
1832! 

But before I close this part of my subject let me repeat 
what I think it is important to remember, that we are now 
treating of the second phase of politics into which England 
had entered in the nineteenth century. The first was 
influenced by fear and rage against France and all things 
French and revolutionary; the second began with the 
death of Lord Castlereagh, and was the era of the infant 
growth of liberal ideas. The statesmen of this second 
period were largely occupied in correcting the mistakes 
of their predecessors, and bringing England to a point she 
probably would have reached a quarter of a century before, 
without convulsions, had not the French Revolution held 
her back from progress. 

When Lord John Russell made his celebrated speech 
introducing the Reform Bill to the House of Commons 
he said : — 

" Suppose a stranger from some distant country should 
arrive in England to examine our institutions. He had been 



THE REFORM BILL. 1 05 

informed that our country was singular from the eminence she 
had attained in wealth, science, and civilization. If in addi- 
tion to this he learned that this land so great, so learned, so 
renowned, once in six years chose its representatives to sit in 
its great council and legislate on all its concerns, with what 
eagerness would he inquire by what process so important an 
election as that of this body was effected. What, then, would 
be his surprise if he were taken by his guide to one of the 
places of election, — to a green mound, ^ — and told that this 
green mound returned two members to Parliament, or to a 
stone wall with niches in it, or to a green park, and told that 
they return as many .'' But greater would be his surprise if he 
were carried to the North of England, where he would see large 
flourishing towns full of commerce and activity, containing 
magazines of trade and manufactures, and was told that these 
places had no representatives in the Assembly which was said 
to represent the people ! " 

1 have said very little of the agitation that for more than 
a year spread over England while the passage of the Re- 
form Bill was debated in Parliament. During the interval 
between the dissolution of Parliament in March, 183 1, and 
the final acceptance of the bill, even the most quiet parts 
of England were in a ferment, and the great towns were 
wrought up to a state of alarming excitement. One of 
these towns was Bristol ; an account of the riots which 
occurred there may be a sufficient picture of the state 
of feeling in the rest.^ 

Bristol, until the rise of Liverpool, was the second com- 
mercial city in England. Liverpool was built up by the 
cotton trade ; Bristol by colonial commerce and the slave 
trade. In the centre of the city stood both the cathedral 
and the Bishop's palace, on College Green, and the mayor's 
official residence in Queen's Square. Queen's Square was 
an open space with grass and trees. An equestrian statue 
of William III. stood in the middle. 

^ Old Sarum. 

2 Miss Yonge has told the story of the Bristol riots in one of her 
volumes called " Chantry Manor ; " and she also gives from her re- 
membrance an excellent picture of the state of feeling in the country 
at that time. 



I06 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Bristol had been much excited by news of the French 
Revolution in July, and its working population was very 
generally affiliated with one of the political societies then 
promoted by Cobbett, and all were ardent in the cause 
of reform. 

Of course, while the passage of the Reform Bill was in 
agitation, everything bitter against the existing system was 
said both inside and outside of the House of Commons. 
All opposers of the bill were loaded with opprobrium, — 
dignitaries of the Church, and more especially the Peers. 
When the Lords rejected the bill passed by the Commons 
in September, 1831, the dread of riots throughout the 
country was very great, the funds fell, and the public 
agitation became intense. The Recorder of Bristol — that 
is, its chief judicial officer — was Sir Charles Wetherell, who 
had bitterly opposed the Reform Bill on its first introduc- 
tion in the House of Commons. He was a narrow-minded 
politician and very unpopular. He was expected to hold 
an assize in Bristol at the very time the ferment was at its 
height ; and so great was the apprehension of riot on the 
occasion that the magistrates asked and received a military 
force to protect him on his entrance into the city. This 
force consisted of ninety-three enlisted men, of whom half 
were dragoons, and half hussars. 

With considerable difficulty, on October 29, the Recorder 
was got safely into the city. There was one moment of 
great danger, however, when he was transferred from his 
own coach to that of the Mayor. He reached the court- 
house, however, opened court, and adjourned it for two 
days. Then began the difficulty of getting him back 
in safety to the Mayor's residence. Law and order 
triumphed, however, for a time ; but at night an attack 
was made upon the Mayor's residence, — the Mansion 
House, — which was nearly demolished. The Riot Act was 
read and the soldiers sent for. By the laws of England, a 
party of military may not fire on a mob till the Riot Act 
has been read aloud by a magistrate by way of warning. 
The colonel in command of the troops, named Brereton, 



THE REFORM BILL. IQ-J 

lost his head. He said, good-humoredly, that he had no 
doubt he could make the rioters walk off, and, drawing up 
his troops as spectators of the disorder, he refused to act in 
any other way. 

The hussars were very impatient under this inaction, and 
their officers made a demonstration, on their own respon- 
sibiUty, which checked the riot for a time. On Tuesday 
the rioters poured into the Mansion House grounds and 
Queen's Square ; by mid-day the Bishop's palace had been 
taken and sacked, the jail-doors opened, and the prisoners 
dispersed. The mob had complete possession of the city. 
Still Colonel Brereton refused to act, and even ordered the 
hussars to withdraw into the country, because when their 
captain was attacked they had fired on the mob. The 
only thing that checked plunder and destructiveness was 
general drunkenness. The populace broke into the Bishop's 
and Mayor's wine-cellars, and propitiated the soldiers, who 
stood idle spectators of these outrages, by offering them 
liquor. The only orders Colonel Brereton could be brought 
to give to his soldiers were, '•' Use no violence. Go to the 
spot where the jail is being stormed, but do nothing." So 
the Bishop's servants were driven out of the Bishop's palace, 
and the building was consumed. 

The Colonel himself on Tuesday night went to bed and 
to sleep. All night the riot went on. The mob, increased 
by sympathizers from the country, began to plunder and 
demolish private houses ; when suddenly at dawn a troop 
of yeomanry marched in, and, after the riots had lasted 
three days and nights, cowed Colonel Brereton, encouraged 
the civil power to appoint special constables, and, charging 
on the rioters, cut down about a dozen. The uprising was 
thus quelled, and the city restored to the care of its police. 
The total amount of damage done was estimated at about 
;^6 5,000 (^320,000). The money to repay claims was bor- 
rowed by the city of Bristol from the Government, and repaid 
by an assessment yearly on the poor-rates. Colonel Brereton 
shot himself. 

This burning of Bristol had a great effect in FrancQ' 



I08 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

where riots in Lyons took place about the same time, in 
which the rallying cry was " Bristol ! " Other riots took 
place in other towns in England, but none equalled in dura- 
tion or destructiveness the riot at Bristol. 

There were three men very prominent in the passage 
of the Reform Bill besides Lord Grey, the Whig leader, 
a man of great experience, self-control, amenity, and wis- 
dom. The three I mean, and of whom I should like to 
speak in this connection, are Lord Althorp, Lord Brou- 
gham, and William Cobbett. In each of their lives there 
are picturesque and interesting elements, and I think it 
may be well to give of each a brief biography. 

The most prominent of those personages who under Lord 
Grey's leadership promoted the passage of the Reform Bill 
was probably Lord Althorp. Indeed, it has been commonly 
said, " It was Althorp who secured the bill ; his fine temper 
did it." 

In the House of Commons there is always a man who is 
recognized as leader in the House. He is the man to whom 
the party of the Government looks in all emergencies, — the 
officer, in short, who drills and commands subordinates. 
For years Sir Robert Peel was leader of his party in the 
House ; Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston were 
Whig leaders. 

Lord Althorp was the only son of Earl Spencer ; Althorp 
was his title by courtesy. Until his father's death he was 
only a commoner, and entitled, if elected, to sit in the 
House of Commons. Lord Palmerston had only an Irish 
title, so that he too was eligible for a seat in the Lower 
House. Mr. Disraeli refused the title of Earl of Beacons- 
field for many years, not wishing to sever his connection 
with the House of Commons. 

One would suppose that so responsible an office as that 
of " leading the House " might demand a man of especial 
talent and quickness ; but probably no leader was ever so 
faithfully followed, so trusted, so beloved, as Lord Althorp, 
who was a slow-witted man, with little or no education, but 
so sterlingly good and sensible that all men put their trust in 



LORD A L THORP. 100 

him. " His mind," says a biographer, "was Hke a reserve 
fund, not invested in showy securities, but sure to be come 
at when wanted, and ahvays of stable value. . . . Every- 
thing with him was solid and ordinary. Men seem to have 
trusted him as they trust a faithful animal, entirely believing 
he would not deceive if he could, and that he could not if 
he would." 

Lord and Lady Spencer, the father and mother of Lord 
Althorp, were frivolous people, and until he went to school 
at Eton he lived almost entirely in the stables, getting all 
the early instruction he ever did get from a Swiss footman. 
In the stables he learned to love horses, dogs, and field- 
sports. All his life he was a " mighty hunter," yet no man 
ever had a more tender love of animals. With culture he 
would probably have developed into a distinguished natural- 
ist. A knowledge of animal life and a taste for statistics 
were the two prominent characteristics of his mind. He 
went through school like any other dull, ordinary, stout- 
hearted English school-boy. At college a few words of 
interest from his mother spurred him up to make some 
exertions in mathematics. On leaving college he went 
abroad ; declined to learn French, shunned society, took 
no interest in sight-seeing, and was glad to get home to his 
sports and his hounds. He went into Parliament in 1804 
for a family borough, and had an ofifice in the Treasury, to 
which it was with difficulty he could be brought to pay any 
attention. When his attendance in town was absolutely 
necessary, he used to have horses posted along the road 
from London to Althorp, and would ride hard all night to 
get home. 

" Being a somewhat uncouth person, and addicted to 
dogs and horses, — a ' man's man,' as Thackeray used to 
call it, — he probably did not go much into ladies' society, 
and was not very agreeable when he was there." It is 
difficult to imagine how he might ever have succeeded in 
getting married, if he had not met in the hunting-field a 
Miss Acklom, a species of Di Vernon, who made all the 
advances, and succeeded in capturing him. A lady who 



no ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

acts thus towards a young nobleman is not commonly what 
we call "a very nice person;" but Lady Althorp secured 
her husband's whole heart. When she died, which she did 
in a few years, he went into complete retirement for months, 
occupying himself almost solely in reading the Bible. He 
gave up hunting, because, he said, he should find too much 
pleasure in it for a man in such affliction. 

But during his wife's life he had begun to take some in- 
terest in politics, espousing warmly the cause of the lowly 
and oppressed. He now threw himself into their cause 
with enthusiasm. 

"So far from running away to hunt, as in old times, he was 
so constant in his attendance on Parliament that tradition says 
hardly any one, except the clerks at the table, was more con- 
stantly to be seen there. He opposed all the acts by which the 
Tory Government of Lord Castlereagh tried to put down dis- 
satisfaction instead of curing it, and his manly energy soon 
made him a sort of power in Parliament. He was always there, 
always saying what was clear, strong, and manly, — things that 
even his opponents understood, — in a rugged English way which 
changed feelings, if it did not change votes. He was a man 
whom every one in the House respected, and therefore he 
spoke to prepossessed listeners. No doubt, too, the tinge 
which grief had given to his character added to his influence. 
He took no share in the pleasures of other men. Though a 
nobleman of the highest place, still young (he was only thirty- 
six when Lady Althorp died), he stood aloof from society, 
which courted him, and hved for public business only ; and 
therefore he had great weight in it, for the English very much 
value obviously conscientious service, and the sobered fox- 
hunter was a somewhat interesting character." 

So invaluable was he as leader in the House of Commons 
that when, in 1834, his father died and he had to take his 
seat in the House of Lords as Earl Spencer, the loss of 
his services in the Lower House broke up Lord Grey's 
ministry. King Wilham refused to give his countenance 
to a Whig ministry that did not contain Lord Althorp, 
and called the Duke of Welhngton and Sir Robert Peel 
to his counsels. They, however, found it impossible to 



LORD A L THORP. Ill 

retain office, and were forced to give place to a new ministry 
of the Whigs under the premiership of Lord Melbourne. 
Nothing, however, would ever induce Lord Althorp (now 
Earl Spencer) to enter into public life again. 

" He said that retirement from office was to him the cessa- 
tion of acute pain, and never afterwards would he touch it, 
though he lived for many years. . . . He retired into the 
country and occupied himself with the rural pursuits which 
he loved best, attended magistrates' meetings at the Quarter 
Sessions, and was active as a farmer. ' Few persons,' said an 
old shepherd, 'could compete with my Lord in the knowledge 
of sheep.' He delighted to see a whole flock pass, and seemed 
to know them as if he had lived with them." 

" Of all my former pursuits," he wrote, after Lady Althorp's 
death, and in the midst of his grief, "the only one in which I 
now take interest is in breeding stock; it is the only one in 
which I can build castles in the air." 

" Lord Althorp was wise," .says Walter Bagehot, summing up 
a review of his character, "with the solid wisdom of agricultural 
England; popular and useful; sagacious in usual things; a 
model in common duties ; well able to advise in the daily 
difficulties which are the staple of human life. But beyond 
this he could not go. Having no ability to decide on more 
intellectual questions, he was distressed and pained when he 
had to do so. He was a man picturesquely out of place in a 
great scene; and it was his personal misfortune (though a 
blessing to the country) that the simplicity of his purposes, 
and the reliability of his character, raised him at a great 
conjunction to a high place for which nature had not meant 
him, and for which he felt that she had not." 

The next character on our list in connection with the 
Reform Bill is a man altogether different from Lord 
Althorp, — a man brilliant as a comet, and about as unde- 
finable ; a man vain with a vanity that sometimes seemed 
to border on insanity ; a man dreaded by his friends, who 
never knew what he might do next, but with talents that 
needed only to have been balanced by steadiness of char- 
acter to make him one of the greatest Englishmen that 
ever lived, — I mean Henry, Lord Brougham. 

" Punch " persecuted him for fifteen years, and he did 



112 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

not like it. Probably during that period there was not 
a number published in which he in his checked trousers 
did not somewhere appear. He is even on one of the 
titlepages, — a little floating angel, in checked trousers 
still. But afterwards " Punch " repented, and dropped him. 

He was born on Scottish soil, and his boyhood was 
passed in Scotland. He came of an old Westmoreland 
family, mixed Norman and Saxon, — Vaux and Brougham ; 
but his mother, as he liked to tell, was of the Celtic race, 
a niece of Robertson the historian. Of the same family 
came the mother of Mr. Gladstone. The family had 
settled in the Shetland Isles. Brougham was far more the 
Celt than the Englishman, and he valued his Celtic origin. 
At a very early age he had learned to read ; but a putrid 
fever wiped all his acquirements from his memory, even 
his knowledge of his letters. He was a grave, sad little 
boy, whose chief pleasure at play was to act scenes in 
court, and be an imaginary Lord Chancellor. After his 
recovery and the restoration of his memory, he was sent 
to various schools in Edinburgh. His great desire was 
for knowledge. From his earliest years he had a re- 
markable aptitude for asking questions. He would put 
anybody, who had information that lie wanted, through 
keen cross-examination. In classics he was a proficient, 
but in science he was no less wonderful. French he 
spoke so perfectly that abroad he has been taken for a 
Frenchman, and much of his time in his later life was 
passed on a property he bought at Cannes. 

One of his schoolmasters at. Edinburgh was Dr. Adam, 
whose miserable income, on first starting in life, had been 
_;^3 a quarter, — a dollar a week. His lodging cost eight 
cents a week. It was four miles from his college. He lived 
on oatmeal and a pennyworth of bread daily. Fire and 
candle were luxuries beyond his reach. When very cold he 
ran up and down the long staircase of his lodging-house 
to warm himself. All, that by these means, he could 
save out of his dollar a week he spent in books for study. 
It was under this man that Brougham acquired not only 



LORD BROUGHAM. II3 

learning, but industry, self-reliance, and an intense love 
of study. 

At sixteen, Brougham wrote an article on the Refraction 
of Light, and shortly after sent in a paper on the same sub- 
ject to be read at the Royal Society. Unfortunately the 
reader omitted some passages as too extravagant. These 
contained the germ idea of photography. 

But Brougham was by no means all student ; he wrote a 
romance.^ He was convivial beyond anything the present 
age can conceive of. He wrenched knockers off doors when 
a collegian, and played at " high jinks " generally. One of 
his exploits was, at dead of night, to wrench a gilt serpent 
from the front of a druggist's shop, where it was put up as a 
sign. He and his fellow mischief-makers were discovered 
by a watchman in the execution of this feat, and had to 
save themselves by a breathless run. At the age of ninety 
the ex-Chancellor chuckled over the remembrance of this 
deviltry. 

He adopted law as his profession, but at first he professed 
to hate it. He wrote of it as " the cursedest of all profes- 
sions." He wanted to be a diplomatist, but no opening 
presented itself, though from the first he was resolved to 
combine his law with politics. His maxims as a lawyer were : 
First, to sacrifice every consideration to the cause of his 
client ; secondly, to consider no cause beneath his notice. 

In 181 6 he was sent to Portugal on a mission from the 
Government. Next he got into Parliament, and distin- 
guished himself in the debates on slavery. In 1820 he was 
the most brilliant defender of Queen Caroline, and had long 
been her legal adviser. While the Queen's trial was at its 
height he ran down for one day to York to defend the rights 
of a^ poor widow who rented a pigstye at sixpence a year. 
Her landlord had pulled down the pigstye, and Brougham 
recovered for his client eight dollars damages, after which 
he rushed back to London to defend the defamed virtue of 
the Queen. 

1 His Autobiography, written towards the end of his life, is con 
sidered highly imaginative. 



114 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

In 1830, after distinguishing himself by his unrivalled elo- 
quence in the House of Commons, he was made Lord 
Chancellor, in the ministry formed by Lord Grey. Such 
a hare-brained Chancellor was a curious spectacle, but he 
proved a most industrious and omniscient one. Never but 
once, after entering the House of Lords, would he set foot 
in the scene of his former triumphs, the House of Com- 
mons, More than a quarter of a century later, when he was 
nearly ninety, he went in, leaning on a friend's arm. From 
the door that led from the Upper House he gazed on the 
stirring scene a moment or two ; and then the tears rose in 
his eyes, and he murmured to his friend : " Take me away ! 
Take me away ! There is not a face I recognize. Dead ! 
— dead ! All gone ! " 

The actual material House of Commons which he then 
entered was not the building in which he had made his 
brilliant oratorical displays. That House had been burned 
down in 1834. Parliament had to take refuge in St. Ste- 
phen's Chapel, Westminster, till its new houses were built. 
The cause of the fire was very curious, very English and con- 
servative. In ancient times the votes on any question had 
been kept by notches cut on sticks, which were called tallies. 
Each member as he voted had a notch cut. This custom 
continued down to 1834, and the old tally-sticks had grown 
so numerous that they were ordered to be burnt, by a vote 
of the House. That burning set fire to the Houses of Par- 
liament, and England paid heavily for her devotion to an 
obsolete custom. 

WiUiam Cobbett's is the third name on our list. He had 
nothing in a Parliamentary point of view to do with the 
passage of the Reform Bill, but no man in England had so 
much influence on that state of opinion and feeling outside 
of Parliament which led to its passage. 

On the borders of Berkshire and Hampshire, not very far 
from Aldershot, on the edge of a wild moor, and about six 
miles from the old town of Farnham, where the palace of 
the Bishop of Winchester stands, is a little village so prim- 
itive that in 1844 an hour-glass hung over the pulpit in its 



WILLIAM COBBETT. II5 

church, and Punch and Judy, having visited the place, were 
invited to stay over Sunday and assist the choir. It is within 
a drive of Swift's Moor Park, of the old Monastery of Wa- 
verley, and of White's Selbome. No words can describe 
the beauty of the moors in autumn, covered with gorse and 
purple heather. On a little cultivated knoll on the edge of 
this moorland stood the thatched cottage of Cobbett's grand- 
mother. His grandfather had been a day laborer, and 
worked forty years for the same employer ; his son rose 
somewhat in the world. He owned a little house and some 
land near Farnham, and kept a sort of public-house, — The 
Jolly Farmer.^ He had three boys whom he taught to read 
and cipher on winter evenings. During the day he sent 
them into the fields to scare birds for neighboring farmers. 
Cobbett was so little when he had to do this work that he 
tells us, " I could hardly climb the stiles without assistance, 
and often found it difificult to get home." 

Cobbett is his own best biographer ; for although he never 
sat down to write his memoirs, his writings are full of auto- 
biographical reminiscences. 

" With regard to my ancestors," he tells us, " I shall go not 
further back than my grandfather, and for this plain reason, I 
never knew any other prior to him. . . . He died before I was 
born; but I have often slept beneath the same roof that sheltered 
him, and where his widow dwelt for many years after his death. 
It was a little thatched cottage, with a garden before the door. 
It had but two windows. A damson-tree shaded one, and a 
clump of filberts the other. Here I and my brothers went every 
Christmas or Whitsuntide to spend a week or two, and torment 
the poor old woman with our noise and dilapidations. She used 
to give us milk and bread for breakfast, and apple-pudding for 
dinner, and a piece of bread and cheese for our supper. Her fire 
was made of turf cut from the heath, and her light was from a 
rush dipped in grease. . . . My father used to boast that he had 
four boys, the eldest of whom was but fifteen years old, who did 
as much work as any three men in the parish of Farnham. I do 
not remember the time when I did not earn my own living. My 

1 Among the queer names of roadside inns that I have seen in 
that neighborhood was one called Tumble-Down Dick, in derision of 
Richard Cromwell. 



Il6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

first employment was scaring birds, my next was weeding and 
tending a single horse at harrowing barley. Hoeing peas fol- 
lowed; and thence I arrived at the honor of joining the reapers 
in harvest, driving the team, and holding the plough." 

Of the diversions of his boy-life he tells us : — 

" One diversion was this : we used to go to the top of a hill 
which was steeper than the roof of a house. One used to draw 
his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay himself 
down, with his arms at his sides, and then the others, one at 
head and one at foot, sent him rolling down the hill like a bar- 
rel or a log of wood. By the time he got to the bottom, his 
hair, eyes, ears, and nose and mouth were all full of this loose 
sand; then the others took their turn, and at every roll there 
was a monstrous spell of laughter. . . . Thus was I receiving 
my education, and this was the sort of education ; and I am per- 
fectly satisfied that if I had not received such an education, or 
something like it, that if 1 had been brought up a milksop with 
a nursery-maid everlastingly at my heels, I should have been 
at this day as great a fool, as insufficient a mortal, as any of 
those frivolous idiots that are turned out of Winchester or 
Westminster school, or any of those dens of dunces called col- 
leges or universities. It is impossible to say how much I owe 
to that sand-hill ; and in later life I went to return it my thanks 
for the ability which it probably gave me to become one of the 
greatest terrors and one of the greatest and most powerful 
enemies of those knaves and fools that are permitted to afflict 
this or any other country." 

I have quoted all this passage because it gives a good 
idea of Cobbett and his style of writing, his plain straight- 
forwardness of speech, his art of drawing landscape sketches, 
his boastfulness, his ignorance, his arrogance, his want of 
sympathy with all that was outside his own sphere and 
experience, and his mastery of the art of unsparing invec- 
tive. When he indulges in this last, each sentence cuts 
like a lash. 

On winter evenings his father taught him reading and 
writing, 

" I have some faint recollection," he says, " of going to school 
to an old woman who, I believe, did not succeed in teaching me 
my letters. ... As to politics, we were like the rest of the 



WILLIAM COBBETT. WJ 

country people in England, — that is to say, we neither knew 
nor thought anything about the matter. The shouts of victory 
or the murmur of a defeat would now and then break in on our 
tranquilhty for a moment, but I do not ever remember seeing a 
newspaper in my father's house. ... At eleven years of age 
my employment was clipping box-edgings and weeding beds of 
flowers in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at the Castle 
of Farn-ham, my native town, I had always been fond of beau- 
tiful gardens, and a gardener who had just come from the King's 
gardens at Kew gave such a description of them as made me 
instantly resolve to work in those gardens." 

He ran away from home, therefore, and one evening in 
June, 1773, he reached Richmond, with three pennies in 
his pocket. He says : — 

" I was trudging through Richmond in my blue smock-frock 
and my red garters tied under my knees, when, staring about 
me, my eyes fell on a little book in a bookseller's window, on 
the outside of which was written, ' The Tale of a Tub,' price 
threepence. The title was so odd that curiosity was excited." 

Instead of supper or a night's lodging, he bought Swift's 
little book and carried it under a haystack. 

" It was something so new to my mind," says he, " that 
although I could not at all understand some of it, it delighted 
me beyond description, and it produced what I have always 
considered a birth of intellect. I read on till it was dark, with- 
out any thought of supper or bed. When I could see no longer, 
I put my little book in my pocket, and tumbled down by the side 
of the stack, where I slept till the birds in Kew Gardens wak- 
ened me in the morning, when off I started for Kew, reading 
my little book. The singularity of my dress, the simplicity of 
my manners, my confident and lively air, and, doubtless, his own 
compassion besides, induced the gardener, who was a Scotch- 
man, to give me victuals, find me lodging, and set me to work. 
One day the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) and one 
of his brothers laughed at the oddness of my dress while I was 
sweeping the grass-plot in front of the pagoda." 

Twice afterwards he ran away from home, — once to 
Portsmouth, where he offered himself as a sailor on board 
a man-of-war ; and afterwards on an impulse he climbed 



Il8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

on a stage-coach that was passing, and went up to London. 
Here one of his fellow-passengers, taking pity on him, got 
him writing to do in a lawyer's office ; but this was so dis- 
tasteful to him that, seeing a placard addressed, " To Spirited 
Young Men," he went down to Chatham, the great recruit- 
ing station, and enlisted in a foot regiment. At Chatham for 
the first time in his life he had leisure to read. " But that 
reading and writing had all to be done amidst the talking, 
laughing, whistling, singing, and brawling of idle soldiers." 

He suffered often, too, from downright hunger. His pay 
was sixpence a day, out of which he had to find food, 
clothes, washing, hair-powder, and pipe-clay. The whole 
week's food was not a bit too much for one day. One 
Friday he had managed to economize a halfpenny. He de- 
termined to buy a red herring on Saturday morning ; but 
as he undressed he found he had lost the money. " I 
buried my head," he wrote, nearly fifty years after, "under 
the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child." 

But his abilities and his knowledge of reading and writ- 
ing raised him rapidly in his regiment, which was sent to 
Nova Scotia. His officers gladly employed him in all kinds 
of business. They saw in him, too, a smart soldier, and 
he soon rose to be sergeant-major. His next step might 
have been a commission. It was at this time that he 
met his wife, the wife who survived him, and whom he 
cherished with the most loyal affection for forty-two years. 

When he first saw her she was thirteen years old, the 
daughter of a sergeant-major in the artillery. The story 
seems to me an idyl in common life. I quote it from one 
of his volumes. 

" I sat in the same room with her for about an hour in com- 
pany with others, and I made up my mind she was the very 
girl for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, — for that 
I always said should be an indispensable qualification ; but I 
saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of 
which I have said so much, and which has been by far the great- 
est blessing of my life. It was now dead of winter, and of course 
the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather pier- 
cing cold. It was my habit (I rose at four o'clock) when I had 



WILLIAM COBBETT. 119 

done my morning's writing, to go out at break of day and take a 
walk on a hill, at the foot of which our barracks stood. ... It 
was hardly light, but she was out in the snow scrubbing out a 
washing-tub. ' That 's the girl for me ! ' I said, when I was out 
of her hearing." 

They were engaged ; but her father's regiment soon after 
was ordered to England. Cobbett gave her the ;!^i5o that 
he had saved, desiring her not to spare the money, but to 
get herself good clothes, and live without hard work. 

It was four years before he again saw her, " and then," 
he says, " I found my little girl a servant of all work (and 
hard work it was), at ^^5 a year (^25), in the house of a 
Captain Brissac ; and without hardly saying a word about 
the matter, she put into my hands the whole of my j[,i^o 
unbroken." 

This was in 1792. Cobbett got his discharge, and forth- 
with married, bringing a charge he was unable to substan- 
tiate against officers of his regiment for misappropriating 
regimental money. He decided after this to take back his 
young wife to America. They settled in Philadelphia. It 
was in those days that Genet, ambassador from France, and 
a fierce Jacobin, was stirring up strife in American politics. 
Washington and the Federal party were accused of leanings 
towards England and despotism. Jefferson and his party 
sympathized with France and her Revolution. A split in 
the cabinet took place on this question, and the whole 
country was divided. France and the Revolution was the 
popular side, but Cobbett chose to pose as an extreme 
Englishman. He opened a bookseller's shop in Phila- 
delphia, flaming with portraits of George III. and Pitt, 
" and every picture," he says, " that I thought Hkely to 
excite the rage of the enemies of Great Britain." He 
also began to issue a paper, which he wrote all himself, 
" The Porcupine Gazette," the spirit of which may be 
judged from the title of its most celebrated article, "A 
Kick for a Bite." If Cobbett gave kicks, he got bites too. 
Many libel suits were brought against him for his violent 
language, — one by the Spanish minister ; one by Dr. Rush, 



120 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

whom he had called Sangrado for his treatment of yellow 
fever. For this he was fined $5000 and costs. This 
broke him up, and he quitted Philadelphia, shaking off 
his feet the dust of the City of Brotherly Love. 

On his return to England he began by writing High Tory 
political articles in the interest of Mr. Pitt ; but he soon 
changed his politics, nobody knows exactly why. I think 
that a man of his stamp would be fiercely English upon 
foreign soil, and fiercely critical and intolerant on return- 
ing to his own country. 

" Cobbett was forty," says an article upon him in " Eraser's 
Magazine," " when he set up his * Political Register,' and he 
soon became a political power in the state, and a thorn, 
or rather a whole bunch of thorns, in the side of the min- 
istry, — indeed of every ministry all his life in turn." He 
became " an Ishmaelite of the political world ; the Ther- 
sites of journalism ; " and throughout all his savage politi- 
cal career he was ever " an excellent husband, an exemplary 
father, a genuine patriot at heart ; he had fancy and feel- 
ing, with a keen sense of moral and natural beauty; he had 
indomitable energy and strong good sense ; he was largely 
endued with civil courage ; and his style is simply inimi- 
table," when not disgraced by ferocity of speech. 

He never claimed consistency. He fought on whatever 
side commended itself to his state of feeling. He was 
furious against Catholic Emancipation, but he grieved over 
the dissolution of the monasteries, and wrote of Good 
Queen Mary and Bloody Queen Bess. Sir Francis Bur- 
dett and a leading nobleman had been his friends through 
evil report and good report ; the former lending him money 
which was never repaid. Both were attacked, when the 
occasion offered, with all the stinging epithets which flowed 
so readily from his tongue or pen. The American Repub- 
lic was sometimes " the only land worth living in ; " at 
others he called it " a land where judges became felons, 
and felons judges." Tom Paine had once been to him 
" a hideous miscreant ; " afterwards he proposed to make 
political amulets of his hair and bones. 



WILLIAM COBBETT. 121 

For all the abuses he attacked from 1801 to 1832, his 
panacea was Parliamentary Reform. He formed associa- 
tions for Reform, he lectured for Reform, he pressed 
Reform on all his readers (and they amounted weekly to 
some hundred thousand). Over the top of his paper 
was always set a woodcut of a gridiron, because he had 
said he would rather be roasted to death than give up the 
cause of Reform. 

In 1829-30, during the height of the Reform agitation, 
he made a horseback journey through England, lecturing 
on Reform in all the towns and villages. " His main 
topics were the villany of existing modes of taxation, and 
of the funding principle, and the effect of these on the 
farming interests ; also the accursed rotten boroughs. . . . 
He was against standing armies, paper money, and national 
debt, modern shop-keeping, and locomotion and modern 
London. . . . He abhorred Jews, Methodists, Quakers, 
bishops, and Malthusians." His opinions were usually on 
a rational foundation, but built up into ill-balanced and 
grotesque edifices, lop-sided and untenable. One result 
of his lecturing tour on horseback was the publication of 
a book unrivalled for its pictures of Enghsh scenery and 
manners, " Cobbett's Rural Ride through England." 

Several times, during the period from 1801 to 1832, his 
" Register " got him into prison, when he, or his friends for 
him, paid heavy fines. Once he went to America, and 
lived a year on Long Island. He came back enthusiastic 
about the cultivation of Indian corn, which to this day 
is called " Cobbett's corn " in England. I remember when 
attempts were made to raise it in English vegetable 
gardens ; but the best efforts produced only a few nubbins. 
He prophesied that England would be ruined by the 
"accursed root," as he always called the potato. 

He owned a charming farm at Botley, in Hampshire, — a 
part of England in which he had had his early home. He 
endeavored to live there as the model farmer of the olden 
time. All kinds of guests flocked thither, and, like dear 
Sir Walter Scott, his means were insufficient to stand such 



122 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

promiscuous hospitality.' Like Scott, too, he loved dogs, 
and took delight in the planting of trees. 

This happy home was broken up by his conviction and 
sentence to two years' imprisonment in Newgate for libel. 
Ten years exactly from the day when he had lost a fortune 
in America for a so-called libel on Dr. Rush, he stood 
up in Westminster Hall, to be sentenced to a fine of 
;^iooo and two years' imprisonment. 

In later life he bought another farm not far from Farn- 
ham ; but it was never dear to him as Botley had been. The 
one friend with whom he never seems to have quarrelled 
was Lord Cochrane. Hazlitt, another remarkable reformer, 
and keen hater, of that period, has drawn Cobbett's portrait. 

" Mr. Cobbett," he says, " speaks almost as well as he writes. 
The only time I ever saw him he seemed to me a very pleasant 
man, easy of access, affable, clear-headed, simple and mild in 
his manners, deliberate and unruffled in his speech, though 
some of his expressions were not very qualified. His figure 
was tall and portly. He had a good sensible face, rather full, 
with little gray eyes, a hard, square forehead, a ruddy com- 
plexion, with hair gray or powdered, and had on a scarlet 
broadcloth waistcoat, with the flaps of the pockets hanging 
down, as was the custom for gentleman farmers in the last 
century, or as we see it in pictures of members of Parliament 
in the reign of George L I certainly did not think less favor- 
ably of him for seeing him." 

In the first Reformed Parliament, Cobbett sat for Old- 
ham. He distinguished himself very little in the House, — 
indeed, he was too old to begin there. In the middle of 
May, 1835, he made his last speech, in favor of the agri- 
cultural interest, and against the manufacturers. His 
throat was so sore that his words were hardly audible, 
and two days later, at his own farm, he quietly died. 

" I have seven children," he once said. " I never struck 
one of them in anger in my life, and I recollect only one single 
instance in which I have ever spoken to one of them in a really 
angry tone and manner. And when I had done so it appeared 
as if my heart had really gone out of my body. It was but once, 



WILLIAM COBBETT. 1 23 

and it will never be again. ... In my whole life I never spent 
one evening away from my own home without some part at 
least of my family, unless I was at a great distance from that 
home." 

Cobbett was so typical an Englishman, and is so indis- 
solubly associated with Reform, that I have given a sketch 
of his life at more length than he might rightly claim, 
perhaps, in these pages. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ACCESSION AND CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 

LORD MELBOURNE. 

'T^HE remaining years of the reign of William IV. were 
■*■ chiefly marked by secret intrigues among the Court 
party to get rid of a Whig ministry, and put in place of 
Lord Grey or Lord Melbourne the Duke of Wellington and 
Sir Robert Peel. These manoeuvres, as we have seen, would 
have succeeded in 1835, had the Duke of Wellington be- 
lieved it possible to induce the House of Commons to 
support a Tory ministry. As it was, the Whigs had, of 
necessity, to retain office, and a new cabinet was formed 
under the premiership of Lord Melbourne, who remained 
in office for six years. 

The picturesque particulars attending the accession of 
Queen Victoria have been already so excellently told by 
Mr. Justin McCarthy (who commences with them his ad- 
mirable " History of our Own Times "), and by Mr. Charles 
Greville, Clerk of the Privy Council, that nothing seems 
left for me to do but to throw on it a few faint side-lights 
of personal reminiscence. 

As we all know. Princess Victoria — christened Alexan- 
drina^ Victoria, and happily not Alexandrina Georgeanna, 
as had been at first proposed — was only daughter of 
Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. His 
three elder brothers, George IV., the Duke of York, and 
King William IV., died childless ; the daughter of the next 



1 In the school-books of my childhood she is called invariably 
Princess Alexandrina. 




QUEEN VICTORIA. 

{In her Coronation Robes. 



THE ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 125 

brother took precedence therefore of her uncles as heiress 
to the EngUsh throne. 

Queen Victoria was bom May 24, 18 19, at Kensington 
Palace, and on the day of her accession, June 20, 1837, 
she was a month more than eighteen years old. Had Wil- 
liam IV. died a few weeks earlier, there must have been a 
Regency, with probably heart-burnings among the Royal 
uncles, because the Queen's mother would have been at its 
head. 

On the 19th of June, 1837, my father, mother, and 
myself, went with a party of American friends to visit 
Richmond, where we dined at its celebrated inn, The Star 
and Garter. As we were sitting over our dessert, a waiter 
came up to us, twisting his napkin in his hand, and whis- 
pered solemnly that news had come from Windsor that the 
King was dying, and that by morning the young Queen 
would be upon the throne. 

How the talk changed at once ! What speculations there 
were around our table about the girl princess, of whom the 
world in general knew absolutely nothing ! She had only 
once appeared at court ; she had never been seen in public 
places ; no portrait of her was well known, except one 
taken when she was a mere child, with cropped hair and a 
coral necklace. It was agreed that she would be wholly 
governed by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, who was 
supposed to be a hard, ambitious woman. Was the young 
Princess in good health? Would she live? If she did not, 
there would surely be a revolution, for England would never 
bear the rule of the next heir to the throne, the Duke of 
Cumberland. 

So, saddened and speculative, we drove back to London. 
The gentlemen who bore the chief part in the conversation 
never dreamed of considering the child-queen as anything 
more than a state doll-baby. They never attributed to her 
a mind, a heart, or knowledge and intelligence of her own. 
And in this uncertainty there was a great deal of public 
regret for William IV., a man whom, as Justin McCarthy 
says, "responsibility had seemed to improve." He him- 



126 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

self felt for his country much the same fear that the country 
seemed to fear for itself, and said, with pathetic simplicity, 
upon his death-bed, that he would be willing to live ten 
years more for the good of his country. " He was evidently 
under the sincere conviction that England could not do 
without him ; " and to keener, more experienced eyes the 
situation seemed very doubtful. 

In England a sovereign's death is followed by three 
months' general mourning. The Sunday after King Wil- 
liam's death my mother and I went to St. Pancras, one of 
the largest churches in London. On coming out, circum- 
stances compelled us to stand aside till all the congregation 
had passed us. Not a soul was there who was not dressed 
in decent mourning. WilHam's last royal act had been to 
sign a pardon. 

He died at Windsor at 2 a.m., June 20, 1837, and at 
once two high personages, who had been in attendance 
on his death-bed, set off to bear the news to Kensington 
Palace. They were the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
Lord Chancellor. They reached the Palace about five 
o'clock, and pounded on the door some time in vain. At 
last one of the servants let them into a room upon the 
lower floor, and there they were kept waiting because the 
Princess " was in such a sweet sleep " that her attendants 
did not like to rouse her. The two elderly gentlemen, 
however, insisted that their errand was so important that 
she must be disturbed. In a few minutes she came out to 
them, just roused from sleep, in a shawl and a white wrap- 
per, perfectly collected and dignified. They did homage 
to her, sent for the Prime Minister, and a Council was 
ordered for eleven o'clock. 

Whence shall I draw my narrative of what took place at 
that Council? Greville's most interesting pages tell of it 
at length, and Justin McCarthy has copied his story ; but 
Lord Broughton (Byron's friend, John Cain Hobhouse) has 
told the same thing in his papers, and, as these are less 
known than Greville's record, I will follow his narrative. 
He says : — 



THE ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 12/ 

" Arriving at the Palace, I was shown into the antechamber 
of the Music Room. It was filled with Privy Councillors 
standing round the long table, set in order, as it seemed, for a 
Council, Sir Robert. Peel and the Duke of Wellington on the 
right, near the head of the table, Lords Melbourne and Lans- 
downe, in full dress, with others of the Whig party, on the left, 
near the top of the table. The Duke of Argyle, and one or two 
ofificers of the Household, were behind the arm-chair at the top. 
There were nearly ninety Privy Councillors present, — so I was 
told. After a little time. Lord Lansdowne, President of the 
Council, advancing to the table, addressed the Lords and others 
of the Council, and informed them of the death of William IV., 
and announced to them it was their duty to inform Her Majesty 
Queen Victoria of that event, and of her accession. He added 
that he, accompanied by those who might choose to assist him, 
would wait upon Her Majesty. Accordingly, Lord Lansdowne 
and Lord Melbourne, the Duke of Cumberland (now King of 
Hanover), and the Duke of Sussex, together with the Arch- 
bishops of Canterbury and York, and the Lord Chancellor, 
withdrew through the folding doors behind the arm-chair, and 
saw the Queen. She was alone ; but Lord Lansdowne told 
me that as they entered they saw a lady retiring into the 
back apartment. Lord Lansdowne returned, and informed the 
Council they had seen the Queen. . . . Not long afterwards 
the door was thrown open, and the Dukes of Sussex and Cum- 
berland (who had returned) advanced to receive Her Majesty, 
and the young creature walked in and took her seat in the arm- 
chair. She was very plainly dressed in mourning, — a black 
scarf round her neck, without any cap or ornament; but her 
hair was braided tastily on the top of her head. She inclined 
herself gracefully on taking her seat. . . . Soon after she was 
seated Lord Melbourne stepped forward and presented her 
with a paper, from which she read her declaration. She went 
through this difficult task with the utmost grace and propriety, — 
neither too timid nor too assured. Her voice was rather sub- 
dued, but not faltering, pronouncing the words clearly, and 
seeming to feel the sense of what she spoke. Every one 
appeared touched with her manner, especially the Duke of 
Wellington and Lord Melbourne ; I saw some tears in the eyes 
of the latter. The only person who was rather more curious 
than affected was Lord Lyndhurst, who looked over Her Maj- 
esty's shoulder as she was reading, as if to see that she read all 
that was set down for her. 

" After reading the Declaration, Her Majesty took the usual 



128 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

oath, which was administered to her by Mr. Charles Greville, 
Clerk of the Council, who by the way let the Prayer-book drop. 
The Queen then subscribed the oath, and a duplicate of it for 
Scotland. She was designated in the beginning of the oath 
Alexandrina Victoria, but she signed herself Victoria R. Her 
handwriting was good. Several of the Council — Lord Lynd- 
hurst, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Duke of Wellington — 
came to the table to look at the signature, as if to discover what 
her accomplishments were in that department. Some formal 
Orders in Council were made, and proclamations signed by the 
Queen, who addressed Lords Lansdowne and Melbourne with 
smiles several times, and with much cordiality. The next 
part of the ceremony was swearing in the new Privy Council. 
A cushion was placed on the right of the Queen's chair, and 
the Dukes of Cumberland and Sussex first took the oaths. 
They kissed the hand of the Queen ; she saluted them affec- 
tionately on the cheek. She had kissed them before in the 
inner apartment, as Lord Lansdowne told me. The Arch- 
bishops and Chancellor were then sworn ; after them Lords 
Lansdowne and Melbourne, and the Duke of Wellington. 
After that they swore in twenty together. There was a good 
deal of bustle and noise while this was going on. . . . The 
ceremony over, some of us sat down to the Council Table. . . . 
During this time the doors of the Chamber were opened fre- 
quently, and many persons admitted to see the young Queen, 
who continued quietly sitting at the head of the table, giving 
her approval in the usual form to several Orders in Council. 

" The Proclamation of the Queen's accession took place at 
St. James' Palace. Her Majesty was presented to the people 
at the window facing Marlborough House. Lords Melbourne 
and Lansdowne and others in court dresses were at her side, 
with certain great officers of state behind her. The Duchess of 
Kent was near her at her right. The crowd was very great, 
but composed of decently dressed people, and gave Her Majesty 
a warm reception." 

Daniel O'Connell was prominent on this occasion, acting 
as fugleman to the cheers of the crowd. Lord Broughton 
concludes thus (and his testimony is corroborated by all 
other testimonies) : — 

" It is impossible to speak too highly of the Queen's demean- 
or and conduct during the whole ceremony. They deserve 
all that has been said of them by all parties, and must have 



THE ACCESSION OF QUEEiV VICTOR/A. 1 29 

been 'the offspring, not of art, not of education, but of a noble 
nature;' to use the words of the eulogy pronounced on them by 
Sir Robert Peel." 

Lord Broughton also remarks that "on the morning 
of the Queen's accession there was more gloom on the 
faces of all than might have been expected, not only 
among Privy Councillors, but generally." 

The truth is the apprehension of the experiment of an 
untried child-queen weighed heavily upon the nation. 
Queen Victoria, as I have said, was wholly unknown, not 
only to the general public, but to the nobility of England, 
and there was but one frail life between the Duke of Cum- 
berland and the English throne. As for the Duke (now 
Ernest, King of Hanover), he went off shortly after to his 
new dominions, and public opinion in England most read- 
ily acquiesced in the loss of both the King and his Hano- 
verian kingdom. 

King Ernest's first act on reaching Hanover was to re- 
voke the constitution granted by his predecessor. He then 
turned out of their professorial chairs at Gottingen three 
distinguished men of letters, whom he sent into exile for 
their liberal opinions. One of these was Gervinus, the 
admirable Shakespeare commentator and scholar. 

Sir David Wilkie was employed to paint the scene of the 
Queen's First Council. His picture now hangs in the 
great hall at Windsor, but he put in the portraits of persons 
who were not there, while many who were present were left 
out. ^ 

1 I saw the Queen frequently not long after her accession. She 
was decidedly pretty as a young girl, and her heads on English post- 
age stamps and Elnglish coins are excellent likenesses. As to her 
reading, I had heard by common report that it was beautiful, but sup- 
posed people exaggerated its merits because of her position. When 
I heard her read I found I was mistaken. I have heard Fanny 
Kemble, and Charles Kemble, and other great readers, but I never 
heard any reader who equalled Queen Victoria. It was like Rachel's 
acting, a revelation of the possibilities of a thing familiar. Without 
effort her voice filled the House of Lords, clear, distinct, yet giving 
the effect of being sweet and low. I saw her once in the Royal Pew 

9 



130 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

It has been supposed, and the supposition is supported 
by a letter the Queen has permitted to be published from 
herself to her uncle King Leopold, that her early life had 
not been altogether a happy one ; but at all events it admi- 
rably fitted her for the station to which she was called. 
She learned patience, self-control, punctuality, industry, and 
fidelity to every duty ; kindness of heart, and a strict 
sense of propriety, came to her naturally. The dread felt 
in England lest the Duchess of Kent should attempt to 
govern in her daughter's stead, or even be " a power behind 
the throne," proved entirely uncalled for. The good sense 
of both mother and daughter kept the Duchess in the back- 
ground, and from the moment when the young Queen, in 
her white wrapper, with her bare feet thrust into slippers, 
came forth from her chamber to meet the Lords who an- 
nounced to her her uncle's death, she has reigned (so far 
as a constitutional sovereign can reign) alone. She has 
had no favorites, no advisers except members of her cab- 
inet, her uncle Leopold (through Baron Stockmar), and 
her husband. She has had no private secretary, and has 
always read, and commented on, all foreign despatches. 
From the time of her marriage she rose early, walked with 
her husband about the grounds at Windsor, breakfasted, 
had daily prayers afterwards in the Chapel, and worked 
steadily at her desk, or with her ministers, till luncheon time. 
If a despatch was brought her she retired with it instantly 
to glance over it, and to put it aside herself till she had 
time to read it attentively. Sometimes her children played 
round her as she was writing, but then it was required of 
them to be quiet ajnd "good." 

To return however to more early days. The ministry 
when the Queen came to the throne, was a Whig ministry, 

(a gallery pew) in the Chapel Royal at St. Jamas'. She wore a black 
silk mantle, and a straw bonnet trimmed with brown ribbon, and pink 
roses in her bonnet cap, — as was the fashion at that period. My 
father was at her first levee. He told us she behaved charmingly, but 
looked very tired towards the last, and her poor little hand was quite 
red, several hundred gentlemen having that day kissed it. 

E. W. L. 



THE ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 131 

and at its head as Prime Minister was Lord Melbourne. 
A itw years before, in anticipation of the possibihty that 
he might be called to be the adviser of a girl-queen, his 
enemies made an effort to ruin him. 

Sheridan had had three lovely granddaughters ; one be- 
came Lady Eglintoun (we all remember the Eglintoun Tour- 
nament) ; one married the Hon. Capt. Blackwood, R. N., 
and became Lady Dufferin ; and one became the wife of a 
city magistrate, Mr. Norton. All these ladies were as clever 
and accomphshed as they were beautiful, but Mrs. Norton 
is best known to the present generation as the poetess Caro- 
line Norton. She wrote the well known little poem " The 
Arab's Farewell to his Horse," and in later life was the 
author of one of the loveliest of our modern poems, "The 
Lady of Garraye." Those who have read "The Lady of 
Garraye" will not easily be induced to believe harm of Mrs. 
Norton, But her husband was a proud, hard, cruel man, 
and a violent Tory. Her relations with him were unhappy, 
and she seems unwisely to have sought counsel from Lord 
Melbourne as one of her father's former friends. Mr. 
Norton became jealous ; and the opportunity for incapaci- 
tating Lord Melbourne for serving a young unmarried 
queen, was too tempting to 'be lost by his party. A scan- 
dal was raised, and a suit was brought which resulted in the 
entire acquittal of Lord Melbourne and Mrs. Norton. The 
jury gave their verdict without hearing the witnesses for the 
defence, or leaving their box ; but the affair left the unhappy 
woman forlorn, and deprived of the society of her children 
for many years. Before Mrs. Norton's death, when she 
was seventy years old and unable to rise from her chair, 
she married Sir Stirling Maxwell, who Avished the world to 
receive this additional proof that he beheved her married 
life with Mr. Norton had been free from blame. 

Lord Melbourne's father and mother had been in their 
day noted members of society, — that society of Fox and 
Sheridan, which gamed high, drank deep, was as witty as it 
was dare-devil, and as brilliant in intellect as it was reckless 
in expenditure. 



132 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

He was his father's second son, and is known to us in 
early life as the Hon. William Lamb. His habits were in- 
dolent, and his studies somewhat desultory, but his mind 
was clear and brilliant, and one of his college essays was 
quoted iu Parliament by the great Charles Fox, with much 
appreciation. He was, of course, a Whig, and an admirer 
of the French Revolution before it grew lurid under the 
Reign of Terror. He adopted law as his profession, and 
got one brief. He used to say that the first sight of his 
name on the back of that brief gave him the highest feeling 
of exultation he had ever enjoyed, — far greater than that of 
seeing himself Prime Minister. 

Unhappily, his marriage for years -blighted his life. In 
the silken covered books of Byron's Beauties, common in 
my young days, we could see an espiegle face crowned with 
short curls, and labelled Lady Caroline Lamb. The poor 
woman was clearly insane, — that sort of incomplete insanity 
so difficult to deal with ; so terrible to those who are respon- 
sible for the patient's control. She had fancy and feeling ; 
she was charming, even in her moments of caprice ; provok- 
ing, irritating, exasperating ; but she could recover at will her 
power over almost any man who had ever come under the 
influence of her fascinations. A writer in the " Quarterly 
Review" has quoted, in connection with her. Pope's lines : 

" Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had ; 
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad : 
Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create 
As when she touched the brink of all we hate." 

After carrying on every manner of vagary, it pleased the 
unhappy woman to fall in love with Lord Byron ; to attempt 
suicide in a ball-room with a fancy dagger, when she found 
he was getting tired of her homage ; and lastly, when they 
parted (on the eve of his marriage with Miss Milbanke, her 
own cousin), she wrote a novel at him, called " Glenarvon." 

No husband was ever more deserving of a wife's high 
opinion than William Lamb, of whom Lady Caroline herself 
said suddenly to a gentleman, at a large dinner-party shortly 
before the publication of " Glenarvon," that he was the 




LORD MELBOURNE. 



LORD MELBOURNE. 133 

most distinguished man she ever knew in mind, person, 
refinement, cultivation, sensibility, and thought. 

Once or twice the unhappy pair were separated, but pity 
for her waywardness always won the husband back again. 
They had had three children ; two died early, but one lived 
to be a hopeless idiot, the object of his father's tenderest 
love and care. During the years that Lord Melbourne's life 
may be said to have been spent in watching over this poor 
boy, and shielding his unhappy mother from the conse- 
quences of her own irrational outbreaks, he amused himself 
with reading, — Greek, Latin, history, literature, and the old 
dramatists ; and of everything he read he made himself 
master, down to its meanest details. He wanted to know, 
not to display his knowledge. Sydney Smith said of him in 
after years : — 

" Our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor. Instead of being 
the ignorant man he pretends to be, before he meets a deputa- 
tion of tallow-chandlers in the morning he sits up half the night 
talking with his secretary, Tom Young, about melting and skim- 
ming, and then, although he has acquired knowledge enough to 
work off a whole vat of prime Leicestershire tallow, he pretends 
the next morning not to know the difference between a dip candle 
and a mould. I moreover believe him to be conscientiously alive 
to the good or evil he is doing, and that his caution has more than 
once arrested gigantic and unreasonable projects in the Lower 
House. I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings, or to brusli away 
the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety that Lord Melbourne 
has raised, behind which to hide himself, but I accuse our min- 
ister of honesty and diligence." 

One of Lord Melbourne's most striking peculiarities was 
a fault acquired in the society in which his lot was cast in 
early manhood, — a habit of accompanying every sentence 
of his speech with a " big, big D." On one occasion Sydney 
Smith said to him, " Now, suppose we consider everything 
and everybody duly d — d, and go on to the subject." How 
Lord Melbourne managed to keep this fault in check while 
political preceptor to his young Queen, it is difficult to 
imasjine. 



134 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

His wife, poor Lady Caroline, died in 1828 in her hus- 
band's arms. A year or two before her death she wrote thus 
to Wilham Godwin : — 

" There is nothing marked, sentimental, or interesting in my 
career. All I know is, that I was happy, well, rich, joyful, and 
surrounded by friends. I have now only one faithful, kind friend 
in William Lamb, two others in my father and mother ; but 
health, spirits, and all else is gone. How ? Oh, surely not 
bv the visitation of God, but slowly and gradually by my own 
fault." 

William Lamb had never been in public office, but he had 
been a member of Parliament, and (like Lord Althorp in 
his early career) had been an habitually careless and inat- 
tentive one. Mr. Canning recommended him to George IV. 
as Secretary for Ireland, under Lord Wellesley. The King, 
who liked his manners, consented at once. " Oh, Lamb ! 
— yes, Lamb ! Put him anywhere." But the pubHc were 
astonished that a man only known to them as a wit, a bon 
vivant, and a dilletante should be sent to such a post. He 
proved admirable in it, however, — indefatigable in work, 
and most conciliatory in manners. When the Duke of Wel- 
lington succeeded Canning he wanted Lamb to remain in 
Ireland, but he preferred to come home, and to see how 
politics then stood in England. Desponding letters from 
his wife also recalled him. He found her dying. After her 
death her brother warmly expressed his sense of the solace 
which her husband's frequent letters had afforded her, and 
his tenderness of demeanor towards her when he came. 

He accepted office and held it till the resignation of Mr. 
Huskisson, soon after which, by his father's death, he became 
Viscount Melbourne ; but he was worse than childless, and 
any further promotion in the Peerage he steadily in after 
years declined. Honors to be transmitted to posterity had 
no pleasure in them for him. In 1834, after Lord Grey's 
ministry went out of office, Lord Melbourne was made Prime 
Minister. His premiership was interrupted for a brief space 
in 1835, while King William tried to form a Tory roinistr)'. 
He had to manage at once an unruly and capricious, though 



LORD MELBOURNE. 135 

well-meaning, king, a weak and disunited cabinet, and a 
factious and disorderly House of Commons, in which Lord 
Brougham, disappointed at not having been made Chancel- 
lor, and O'Connell, disappointed that he had not a high law 
appointment in Ireland, joined the Tories in opposition. 
Brougham was not Chancellor because William IV. bitterly 
disliked him, and is said to have exclaimed, on parting with 
him, that " he did n't want ever to see his ugly face again ; " 
besides which his late colleagues objected to him in the 
cabinet. " Brougham," they said, " is dangerous as an 
enemy, but destructive as a friend." 

Things were in this state, and the ministry very weak in 
the House of Commons, when King William died. 

The question that arose in all men's minds at once was : 
Was Lord Melbourne a fit man to be the first adviser and 
" political preceptor " of a young and maiden Queen? His 
nephew, Lord Cowper, writing a sketch of his uncle's life 
in the " Ninteenth Century " magazine, says, — 

" It is important to remember always that the charm of Lord 
Melbourne's manner was the one great thing that remained 
impressed upon the mind of all those who had communication 
with him. Sparkling originality, keen insight into character, a 
rich store of information on every subject always at hand to 
strengthen and illustrate conversation, exuberant vitality, and 
above all, the most transparent simplicity of nature. — these, 
from what I have heard, must have been his principal charac- 
teristics. I am bound to add that some of his fashions in 
speech often shocked fastidious people. . . . The charms of 
his manner and conversation were set forth to the utmost 
advantage by a beautiful voice and a prepossessing personal 
appearance. He was tall, strong, and of vigorous constitution; 
brilliantly handsome even in old age." 

Such is the description of Lord Melbourne by his kins- 
man. Here is another sketch of him by a writer in the 
" Quarterly," a review devoted to the interests of his 
political enemies: — ■ 

" Lord Melbourne had merit enough to throw any co-existing 
demerit into the shade ; merit enough to give him prominent 



136 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

rank as a high-bred, high-minded, and highly cultivated, thor- 
oughly English statesman, of whom the contemporary and 
every succeeding generation of Englishmen may be proud." 

Greville says, — 

" The Queen is upon terras of the greatest cordiality with 
Lord Melbourne, and very naturally. Everything is new and 
delightful to her. She is surrounded with the most exciting 
and interesting enjoyments ; her occupations, her business, her 
Court, all present an unceasing round of gratifications. With 
all her prudence and discretion she has great animal spirits, and 
enters into the magnificent novelties of her position with the 
zest and curiosity of a child. No man is more formed to 
ingratiate himself with her than Melbourne. He treats her 
with unbounded consideration and respect, he consults her 
taste and her wishes, and he puts her at her ease by his frank 
and natural manners, while he amuses her by the quaint, queer, 
and epigrammatic turn of his mind, and his varied knowledge 
upon all subjects. It is not therefore surprising that she should 
be well content with her present government. . . . She seems 
to be liberal, but at the same time prudent with regard to 
money, for when the Queen Dowager proposed to her to take 
her band into her service, she declined to incur so great an 
expense without consideration ; but one of the first things she 
spoke to Melbourne about was the payment of her father's 
debts, which she is resolved to discharge." 

" If," says the article in the Quarterly already quoted. " it be, 
as is universally agreed, that no monarch, male or female, ever 
better understood, or more conscientiously fulfilled the highest 
duties of a constitutional sovereign than Queen Victoria, all 
honor to the sagacious, high-minded counsellor who watched 
over her with parental care whilst those duties were new 
to her, and devoted his best energies to guide and confirm 
the inborn rectitude of purpose and elevation of character by 
which the prosperity of a great empire, and the well-being of 
millions have been nobly upheld. It would be difficult to name 
a more impressive scene than that of the elderly statesman, 
reading, as he did, to the young and inexperienced sovereign 
the verses in which Solomon, asked by God in a dream what he 
wished to be given him, replied : ' An understanding heart to 
judge this people.' " 

On its being maliciously remarked to the Duke of Wel- 
lington, the Tory leader, that " Lord Melbourne was a great 



LORD MELBOURNE. 1 37 

deal at the palace," the Duke sharply said, " I wish to 
heaven he was always there ; " and three years later he 
spoke thus in the House of Lords : — 

" I am willing to admit that the noble Viscount has rendered 
the greatest possible service to Her Majesty ; . . . making 
her acquainted with the mode and policy of the government of 
this country, initiating her into the laws and spirit of the Con- 
stitution, independently of the performance of his duty as the 
servant of Her Majesty ; teaching her, in short, to preside over 
the destinies of this great country." 

But of course caricaturists and others took hold of 
the subject and made pictures and squibs concerning the 
Prime Minister's constant attendance on the young Queen. 
This was her first initiation into the discomforts attend- 
ant on her exalted station. " H. B." was more decorous 
than Gilray, the caricaturist of the times of George III., 
and the Prince Regent, but " H. B." allowed himself a 
license which " Punch " does not permit himself now. 

The first great subject of public interest in the days of 
Queen Victoria was the revolt in Canada. Canada has 
been so long a loyal part of the Queen's dominions that 
it seems hardly worth while to dwell on its old grievances ; 
but, in brief, the French (or Lower Canadians) deemed 
themselves neglected, and under a leader named Papineau, 
a member of the Provincial Parliament, bought arms on the 
United States side of the St. Lawrence, and broke into in- 
surrection. It was put down, though with some difficulty, by 
General Hill and Lord Durham, son-in-law to Lord Grey, who 
had been a prominent Whig leader during the passage of the 
Reform Bill. As Lord Durham had been then stigmatized 
as a violent Radical, it is amusing to find that when placed 
in a position of authority he displayed as strong a partiality 
for despotic rule as General Jackson. Having got Papineau 
and some others into his hands, he proposed to exile them 
to Bermuda without process of law. and to put them to 
death if they returned to Canada. He was recalled after 
this " ordinance," and came home very angry ; but the 
ministry was too weak to bear many shocks, and in 1839, 



138 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

being defeated on some West Indian measure, it resigned. 
The Duke of Wellington, though of the opposite party, had 
deprecated all factious opposition on the part of the Con- 
servatives, believing it best to leave the young Queen the 
minister who seemed so wisely guiding her. However, 
when Lord Melbourne had to resign for want of a majority 
in the House of Commons, the Queen sent for the Duke, 
who advised her to summon Sir Robert Peel. Before, how- 
ever, Peel could form a ministry, a difficulty arose. The 
Queen insisted that the resignation of the Whig Ministry 
could not involve the dismissal of all the ladies of her 
household. Sir Robert replied that almost all her ladies 
were near kinswomen of leading Whig noblemen, and that 
he could not undertake to form a government if their influ- 
ence was to be paramount at court. 

This led to what was called the Bed Chamber Question, 
which made more excitement among all parties than can 
now be conceived of. It seemed to unfold a new view of 
the Queen's character, — a self-will, people said, which 
argued she was granddaughter of George III. There were 
also some constitutional questions involved. Was the pri- 
vate will, or the personal feelings of the sovereign, to put 
a brake on the affairs of the country when Parliament had 
declared itself in favor of a change of administration ? Also 
the Queen's personal attachment to the Whigs and Lord 
Melbourne, and her personal dislike to Sir Robert Peel and 
the Tories, was made so evident, that it seemed doubtful 
whether she would ever be able to work harmoniously with 
the Conservative party. The Tories, too, were very awk- 
wardly placed. They had always posed as the most loyal 
subjects of the Crown, and now they seemed to be oppos- 
ing the personal wishes of the Queen and attempting to 
coerce Her Majesty. 

The matter ended by Lord Melbourne and the Whigs 
coming back into office, and holding it for two more years ; 
thanks to the intermittent support of O'Connell and the 
Radicals, and the patriotism and forbearance of the Duke of 
Wellington. When at the end of that time the Duke and 
Sir Robert Peel came into power a compromise was effected, 




;jy 



LADY CAROLINE LAMB. 



LORD MELBOURNE. 139 

and a rule established that when a new ministry came into 
office, all ladies of the royal household, nearly related to the 
outgoing ministers, should resign, and all others be retained. 

This rule commended itself to Lord Melbourne's judg- 
ment at the time, though in his later life he was by no 
means confident that in this Bed Chamber matter he had 
rightly advised the Queen. That, and an unfortunate 
occurrence about this time at court (a scandal cruelly 
affecting the pure and virtuous Lady Flora Hastings), in 
which the inexperienced young Queen, while trying to do 
right, made herself the instrument of a great wrong, injured 
for a short time her popularity. 

However, the Bed Chamber affair did not take place till 
May, 1839, — but on the 28th of June, 1838, the young 
Queen had been crowned. 

The object of ministers was to make the outside show at 
the coronation as imposing as possible, so as to give enjoy- 
ment to hundreds of thousands of people who could not 
possibly get into the Abbey. My father had a ticket for the 
Abbey ; my mother, sister, and myself were invited by some 
Boston friends then staying at the St. James' Hotel (one of 
the best points for viewing the procession) to see it from 
their windows. 

The morning of the Coronation Day, June 28, 1838, 
broke out gloriously. " Queen's weather" has long passed 
into an English proverb.^ It was very early morning when 

1 May I be pardoned for relating here a little adventure which hap- 
pened to me in Westminster Abbey while preparations for the coro- 
nation were going on ? The public is in general not allowed to wander 
at will among the tombs and statues, but custodians that day could not 
be spared. I was with a party who had tickets to view the prepara- 
tions. Taking advantage of our liberty, we went up on the roof and 
looked down upon London. Coming down we descended a very nar- 
row winding stone staircase. Half way down I saw a door fastened 
only by a button. Prompted by the curiosity of "sweet sixteen," I 
opened it. and found myself face to face, as it seemed to me, with the 
corpse of Queen Elizabeth. There she was, ruff, and red hair, white 
satin petticoat, and enormously long stomacher. In my fright I had 
nearly fallen headlong down the stairs. It was a wax figure, which 
for two centuries had been shown in the Abbey, and finally, being 
judged an unseemly exhibition, had been thrust into this closet on 
the winding stair, where I dare say it remains unto this day. 



140 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

we drove as near as we were able to the line of the proces- 
sion, and then made our way by back streets to the St. James' 
Hotel. For days the excitement throughout London had 
been great. An encampment had been made in Hyde 
Park, which was full of soldiers, and all along the line of the 
procession (about two miles) scaffoldings had been erected, 
and seats let by the householders. It was said afterwards 
that ;^200,ooo (that is, a miUion of dollars) had been paid 
for seats alone, and the number of strangers that flocked 
into London for the occasion was about 500,000. The 
pavements were of course entirely filled with spectators ; 
the line of march had, during the night, been covered with 
fresh gravel. Police patrolled the line, and at intervals 
of about twenty feet apart, horse soldiers guarded it in 
all their martial pomp and bravery. No person whatever 
was allowed to pick his way along the line of march, unless 
he was in court dress or uniform, and had a ticket for the 
Abbey. It was amusing to see some of these unfortunates, 
at what to them must have seemed the dawn of day, picking 
their way cautiously over the loose gravel, in full court cos- 
tume, — white silk stockings, buckles, laced cocked hats, 
white knee-breeches, waistcoats with flaps, and powdered 
wigs. 

There were splendid companies of troops and bands, 
and high dignitaries, — archbishops, bishops, and judges ^ 
but the great sight was the carriages of the ambassadors. 
It had been required of them that they should make a 
beautiful display. The ambassadors of the Great Powers 
had each several carriages drawn by the most beautiful 
horses (always four) . But the enthusiasm of the day, until 
the Queen drew near, was for Marshal Soult. He had been 
sent as Ambassador Extraordinary by Louis Philippe for the 
occasion. Of the interest he excited everywhere in London 
Charles Greville says, — 

" The old soldier is touched to the quick by this generous 
reception, and has given utterance to his gratitude and sen- 
sibility on several occasions in very apt terms." 

It need not be said that the Duke of Wellington was 
foremost in his attentions to his old antagonist. His car- 



LORD MELBOURNE. 141 

riages and horses made a wonderful display. Prince Ester- 
hazy, the Austrian ambassador, was also magnificent. He 
himself blazed with diamonds from his hat to his heels ; 
and, as most of these state carriages had glass panels, we 
could see the celebrities inside very plainly. The American 
Ambassador at that time was Mr. Stevenson, of Virginia. 
His carriage was of republican simplicity, but with magnifi- 
cent horses, and well-dressed servants, in very plain livery. 
Both servants and horses had been brought from his own 
plantation. The good taste of his equipages was appre- 
ciated by the crowd. Finally the Queen came in the State 
Gilded Coach, drawn by the eight long-tailed, cream- 
colored, heavy Hanoverian horses. One of these animals 
electrified the London public a few years since by some 
capers of which its race had never been supposed capable. 
Each horse was led by a groom in the red royal livery. 
The Queen's carriage was preceded by the beef-eaters 
{Iniffeiiers, — men who stand by the buffet to guard the 
sovereign when at dinner). They wore the costume of 
Henry VHI.'s day, — heavy leggings, a very full and very 
short kilt, with a flat cap and an embroidered jerkin. 
Their particular office now-a-days, unless on State occa- 
sions, is to guard the Tower. 

The Queen wore some of her State robes, and looked 
very sweet and womanly. In the carriage with her was the 
Duchess of Sutherland, probably the most beautiful woman 
in England. On State occasions the Duchess of Kent, the 
Queen's mother, seemed always to efface herself. 

My father saw the ceremonies in the interior of the Abbey. 
But what he saw I may better describe in the words of an 
old lady who published her reminiscences of that day, a few 
years since, in the " Monthly Packet," a delightful English 
periodical, edited by Miss Charlotte Yonge. She says : — 

" When the Queen rose from her knees on first entering the 
Abbey in her robes of State, the Archbishop turned her round 
to each of the four sides of the Abbey, saying, in a voice so 
clear it was heard in the inmost recesses, ' Sirs, I here present 
unto you the undoubted Queen of this realm. Will ye all 



142 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

swear to do her homage ? ' And each time as he said it there 
were shouts of, ' Long Hve Queen Victoria ! ' and the sounding 
of trumpets and the waving of flags, which made the poor little 
Queen turn first very red, and then so pale she seemed as if she 
longed to creep under the Archbishop's wing. Most of the ladies 
cried. It did not aiTect me in that way, but it gave me what I 
may call a new sensation, and I felt I should not forget it as long 
as I lived. The Queen recovered herself after this and went 
through all the ceremony as if she had often been crowned 
before; but seemed very much impressed, too, with the service, 
— and a most beautiful one it is. The coronation struck me as 
being less of a show, and so much more of a religious ceremony 
than I expected. The Archbishop seemed to take a more prom- 
inent part than the Queen herself. Certainly there was some- 
thing very beautiful in the way he blessed her, both before and 
after he had crowned her ; all the others joining with a loud 
' Amen ! ' And she looked more like a child receiving her father's 
blessing than anything else, for no one would have taken her to be 
as much as nineteen years old. It was a pleasure to think it was 
a really good man who was giving her that benediction ; indeed, 
no one who was not could have read the service so touchingly as 
he did. She once asked him leave to sit down, and she did it so 
prettily ; so she did when, putting off her crown, she received the 
sacrament. The music was beautiful. When the Queen came 
in the choir sang, ' I was glad when they said unto me. Let us go 
into the House of the Lord.' While she was being crowned 
they sang, ' Zadok the Priest, and Nathan the Prophet, anointed 
Solomon King.' And then, when it was over, 'The King shall 
rejoice ! ' and the Hallelujah Chorus. 

"The prettiest part of the sight was the Queen's eight train- 
bearers, — the eight handsomest girls they could find, I believe, 
among the daughters of Dukes, Marquises, and Earls. They 
were dressed alike in silver muslin gowns, with roses on their 
heads. They held up Her Majesty's purple velvet train, and 
once or twice they pulled her back by it, for which the Duchesses 
of Northumberland and Sunderland scolded them. When the 
service was over the homage began. The Archbishop, in the 
Rubric, is ordered to ' lift ' the Queen on the throne. He did 
not do that, but gave her his arm, and walked her up the steps 
of the throne, and seated her on it. Then, as if he had made 
her Queen, he left her, and came to do her homage. 

" The only excitement was caused by old Lord Rolles, who is 
past eighty, and insisted on paying his homage. He stumbled 
and fell. The Queen started from her throne, and tried to save 




DUKE OF KENT. 



LORD MELBOURNE. 143 

him, at which all the Abbey shouted and cheered. The Queen 
throughout behaved very prettily, and when she left the Abbey 
bowed to Lord Rolles and to nobody else. The last prayer 
having been said, the robe of cloth of gold having been taken 
off, and the purple one put on, they put her sceptre in one hand 
and the orb in the other ; the crown was on her head, and our 
most Gracious Sovereign Lady left the Abbey." 

Miss Martineau, who was a keen though not always a 
sympathetic observer, has left us a graphic account of what 
she saw that day in the Abbey, which she reached before six 
o'clock in the morning, and found that many ladies, decollete'es, 
bare-armed, and in full dress, had been standing on the cold 
flagstones waiting for admittance since half-past five. 

" The sight of the rapid filling of the Abbey," she says, "was 
enough to go for ; the stone architecture contrasted finely with 
the gay colors of the multitude. Except a mere sprinkling of 
oddities, every one was in full dress. The scarlet of the military 
officers mixed in so well, and the groups of the clergy were dig- 
nified, but to an unaccustomed eye the prevalence of court dress 
had a curious effect. The Earl Marshal's assistants, called Gold 
Sticks, looked well from above, lightly flitting about in white 
breeches, silk stockings, blue laced frock coats, and white sashes. 
The throne^ was an arm-chair with a round back, and beneath 
its seat was a ledge, on which lay the Stone of Scone. It was 
covered, as was its footstool, with cloth of gold, and it stood on 
an elevation of five steps in the centre of the area. The first 
Peeress took her seat in the North Transept at a quarter before 
seven, and three of the Bishops came next. From that time the 
Peers and their ladies arrived faster and faster. ... I never 
anywhere saw so remarkable a contrast between youth and age 
as in these noble ladies, all with their necks and arms bare, and 
gHttering with diamonds. . . . The younger ones were as lovely 
as the old ones were haggard. 

" At half-past eleven we were told that the Queen had arrived. 
Then in the robing-room there was some delay. . . . The accla- 
mation when the crown was put on the Queen's head was very 
animating, and in the midst of it, in an instant of time, the Peer- 
esses were all coroneted." 

^ Edward the Confessor's. 



144 ENGLAND IN, THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

At that moment a ray of sunshine fell upon them where 
they sat in the North Transept, and the flash of the dia- 
monds in the sunlight was a thing never to be forgotten. 

There was one contretemps. The coronation ring with 
its great ruby had been made for the little finger of the 
Queen, but the Archbishop insisted it must be put on the 
fourth finger, as the rubric prescribes. He forced it on, 
but it hurt her very much, and as soon as the ceremony 
was over she had to bathe her finger in iced water to get 
it off. She said to Lord John Thynne when the orb was 
put into her hand, "What am I to do with it? " "Your 
Majesty is to carry it, if you please, in your hand." "Am 
I ? " she said ; " it is very heavy." 

Miss Martineau repeats a story current in London at the 
time, that a foreigner who was present, when writing home 
an account of the coronation, and mentioning Lord RoUes's 
accident, gravely reported what he entirely believed on the 
word of a wag, that the Lords Rolles held their estates on 
the condition of performing the feat of rolUng off the steps 
of the throne at every coronation. 

At night all London was illuminated. No carriages were 
allowed in the streets, but the crowd so blocked them that 
it was difficult to move about. Greville says, — 

" From Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey by the 
way that the procession took, which must be two or three miles 
in length, there was a dense mass of people, the seats and 
benches were all full, every window occupied. The roofs of 
the houses were covered with spectators, for the most part well 
dressed ; and from the great space through which they were 
distributed there was no extraordinary pressure, and conse- 
quently no cause for violence or ill-humor. In the evening I 
met Esterhazy, and asked him what the foreigners said. He re- 
plied, ' They admired it all very much. The Russians and others,' 
he added, ' may not like you, but they feel it, and it makes a 
great impression on them. In fact, nothing can be seen like it 
in any other country.' " 

"The great merit of this coronation," adds Greville, "is 
that so much has been done for the people. To amuse and 
interest them seems to have been the principal object." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. — O'CONNELL AND 
IRELAND. 

' I ^HE marriage of their young Queen was naturally a 
-'- subject of the deepest interest to the English people. 
In the first place, on that marriage would depend her future 
happiness, and the general course of pohtics during her 
reign ; in the second place, if the Queen remained unmar- 
ried, or, if married, should die childless, the hated Ernest 
of Hanover (the Duke of Cumberland) was her heir 
presumptive. 

Of course the world speculated as to whom she would 
marry. Some persons thought her choice would be her 
cousin, Prince George of Cambridge, but the Cambridge 
family was not then popular with the English ; the old 
Duke was so silly, and the Duchess, who had spent most 
of her married life in Hanover was little known in England. 
A story was got up that the young Queen had appeared to 
distinguish Lord Elphinstone at some of her entertainments, 
and that on that account he had been sent off to India. 
But all this time her sagacious elders — her mother, the 
Duchess of Kent, and her uncle, King Leopold — were 
planning for her a future that would make her domestic 
life the happiest of the happy for one-and-twenty years. 
A young Prince, three months younger than herself, was 
being educated to be her husband, — trained by their uncle 
Leopold to occupy the very place he would have occupied 
in English history had Princess Charlotte lived. It was no 
easy position. It was one requiring great self-abnegation, 
self-effacement, tact, judgment, even wisdom ; and almost 



146 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

from his birth this young Prince had been in training for 
the fate designed for him. On what his character might 
prove to be, it might be said that the fate of the world for 
two generations would depend. 

It was in November, 1839, that the Queen announced to 
her ministers her intention of marrying her cousin, Prince 
Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and the next day she appeared 
at dinner wearing his portrait set in diamonds. 

The news was a surprise to many of her ministers. The 
matter had been treated wholly as a domestic affair. The 
Prince had been visiting at Windsor, but of what was going 
on between the young people even Lord Melbourne had 
not been officially informed. 

The marriage was not altogether agreeable to the nation. 
Some persons objected to the union of first cousins. Among 
the populace rose the ready cry of " beggarly Germans." 
But the great outcry was when the intended marriage was 
announced in Parliament. 

There were two branches of the House of Coburg, one 
Catholic, one Protestant. It was said they were kept thus 
to afford husbands either for Catholic or Protestant queens. 
Lord Melbourne, in announcing the marriage to Parliament, 
had omitted to state distinctly that Prince Albert was a 
Protestant, and this was interpreted to mean that he was 
a Jesuit in disguise. " If he is not a Catholic," wrote King 
Ernest of Hanover, " he is a free-thinker and atheist, which 
is even worse." 

A howl of protest rose throughout all England. Minis- 
ters said that howl was pure nonsense and fanaticism, and 
refused to make any change in their announcement to the 
public, though they stated distinctly in their speeches in 
Parliament that Prince Albert was a good Protestant. 
These speeches, however, did not satisfy the public ; there 
seemed to be some mystery about the Prince's religion, 
— something withheld. Even his name did not please the 
people, — Albert ! so un-English ! it was said. We who 
knew all about Prince Albert's position with regard to re- 
ligion, may smile now at the idea of his being considered 




DUCHESS OF KENT. 



THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 1 47 

an atheist, or disposed to adopt Catholicism. However, a 
great deal of ferment was created in the minds of the 
pubUc, which probably led to successful resistance in Par- 
liament to the allowance proposed for him by ministers ; 
that is, ;^5 0,000, the same sum voted for Prince Leopold 
when he married Princess Charlotte. Mr. Hume, the 
economist of the House of Commons, proposed instead 
;^2 1,000. It was finally made jT^^o^ooo, very much to the 
distress of the Queen. 

This is pretty much all that we should know of the 
engagement, were it not for the Life of the Prince Con- 
sort, virtually written by the Queen herself; and if occa- 
sionally it seems strange to us that we should be admitted 
in her lifetime to her womanly confidences, we must remem- 
ber the position in which a queen stands. She has no 
social equal. If she would give confidence, she must pour 
it directly, or indirectly, into the public ear. She has lived 
always with a glare of light thrown on her path and on her 
bed ; to the great heart of England, rather than to cour- 
tiers, Queen Victoria turned with an appeal for sympathy 
when her great sorrow came ; and, as Sir Charles Grey 
says in his preface to her Reminiscences of Prince Albert's 
early life, of their engagement, and their marriage, *' No 
one could doubt this confidence would meet with the warm- 
est and most heartfelt sympathy." This being the case, 
we turn to the Queen's pages, and learn much there that 
she could tell us, and she alone. 

Prince Albert, or as they baptized him, Francis Albert 
Augustus Charles Emmanuel, was born on August 26, 1819, 
three months after the " May-flower," his little English 
cousin. He was of the old Saxony house of Coburg ; his 
father was its Grand Duke, and his mother, Louise, was the 
last representative of the House of Gotha. She was not a 
lady of spotless reputation, and four years after the birth 
of her second son. Prince Albert, she was divorced by her 
husband. She lived in retirement nine years in Switzer- 
land, not permitted to hold any intercourse with her chil- 
dren. The Queen tells us she was full of talent and 
cleverness, small, and very beautiful, with blue eyes ; and 



148 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Prince Albert, who tenderly cherished all early :jiemories of 
her, was thought extremely like her. 

Prince Ernest, Prince Albert's brother, was a stout, 
hearty, active lad, with bright black eyes. Albert was fair, 
with blue eyes and sunny curls. They led the usual life of 
happy children, and were devotedly attached to each other, 
and to their uncle, Leopold. They had also two excellent 
grandmothers, who tooTc charge of them, and endeavored 
to supply their mother's place. 

From Albert's birth, the elders of his family seem to 
have looked forward to his marriage with his little English 
cousin. " She may be another Charlotte," they wrote to 
each other ; and, although they did not write it, they evi- 
dently thought, "He may be another Leopold." 

When the Queen was collecting memoranda for the Life 
of the Prince Consort, she wrote to Count Arthur Mens- 
dorff, then a cabinet minister in Vienna (son of Princess 
Sophia of Saxe-Coburg, a nobleman whom she had mar- 
ried "for love"), asking him to tell her what he could 
remember of the visit paid by Ernest and Albert to his 
father's chateau when they were about nine years old. He 
writes thus : — 

" Albert was never noisy or wild. He was always very fond 
of natural history, and of more serious studies. Many an hour 
we boys spent under the attic roof arranging and dusting the 
collections we had stored up there. He had a turn for imita- 
tion, and a strong sense of the ludicrous, but was never severe 
or ill-natured, always refraining from pushing a joke so far as to 
hurt anybody's feelings. From his earliest infancy he was dis- 
tinguished by his perfect moral purity, both in word and deed, 
and to this he owed the sweetness of disposition which made 
him beloved by every one. ... In 1839, when I was serving 
in the Austrian Lancers, we met at Toplitz, and drove thence 
to Carlsbad. E6s, his black greyhound, was with us in the 
carriage. During our journey Albert confided to me, under the 
seal of the strictest confidence, that he was going to England to 
make your acquaintance, and that if you liked each other you 
were to be engaged. He spoke very seriously about the diffi- 
culties of the position he would have to occupy in England, but 
he hoped that dear Uncle Leopold would assist him with his 
advice." 



THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 1 49 

Prince Ernest and Prince Albert were partly educated in 
Brussels under the eye of this " dear Uncle Leopold ; " 
they made walking excursions, as boys on the Continent 
commonly do, during their summer vacations, and in 1837 
they both went to the University of Bonn. 

Prince Albert was an earnest student, and very fond of 
music ; but he was also good at athletic sports, even to 
such an extent as to attract the admiration of some travel- 
ling Englishmen. There were several other German princes 
at Bonn at this time, forming quite a little society of equals ; 
but the two Coburg Princes apparently mixed freely with 
their fellow-students of every social grade. 

The year before, that is, in 1836, Ernest and Albert had 
been in England. There it had first been suggested to the 
Prince that it was the wish of the united families that he 
might find favor in the eyes of his young cousin. Princess 
Victoria. Here is a little letter that he wrote his father, not 
many days before his cousin became queen : — 

" A few days ago I received a letter from Aunt Kent, enclos- 
ing one from our cousin. She said I was to communicate its 
contents to you, so I send it on with a German translation. 
The day before yesterday I had a second and still kinder letter 
from my cousin, in which she thanks me for my good wishes on 
her birthday. You may easily imagine that both these letters 
gave me the greatest pleasure." 

But the young cousin was not eager to be won, and 
Albert was sent to make a tour in Italy. Thence he wrote 
letters full of precocious wisdom, — indeed a thought prig- 
gish, it might seem to some. They show good judgment, 
but no particular brilliancy or originality. Here, however, 
is the letter he wrote to his cousin on her accession to the 
throne : — 

Bonn, June 26, 1837. 
My dearest Cousin, — I must write you a few lines to pre- 
sent you my sincerest felicitations on that great change which 
has taken place in your life. Now you are Queen of the mightiest 
land of Europe, and in your hand lies the happiness of millions. 



150 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

May Heaven assist and strengthen you with its strength in that 
high but difficult task. I hope that your reign may be long, 
happy, and glorious, and that your efforts may be rewarded by 
the thankfulness and love of your subjects. May I pray you 
to think likewise sometimes of your cousins in Bonn, and to con- 
tinue to them that kindness you favored them with till now. Be 
assured that our minds are always with you. I will not be indis- 
creet, and abuse your time. Believe me always your Majesty's 
most obedient and faithful servant, 

Albert. 

Three days after he writes to his father : — 

" Uncle Leopold has written me a great deal about England, 
and all that is going on there. United as all parties are in high 
praise of the young Queen, the more do they seem to manoeuvre 
and intrigue with and against each other. On every side there 
is nothing but a net-work of cabals and intrigues, and parties 
are arrayed against each other in the most inexplicable manner." 

So the Prince went off to Italy, and, after the usual 
Italian tour, revisited England in 1839. But here a diffi- 
culty occurred, which may best be told in the Queen's own 
words. She writes in the third person : — 

" Albert objected that if he were kept waiting for the Queen's 
final answer for several years it would then be too late for him 
to begin to prepare himself for any new career, should the 
Queen decide against him." 

"The Queen says," adds Sir Charles Grey, "that she 
never had any idea of this, and she afterwards repeatedly 
informed the Prince that she never would have married 
any one else. She expresses, however, her great regret that 
she had not, after her accession, kept up her correspon- 
dence with her cousin." 

" Nor can the Queen now," she writes herself, " think without 
indignation against herself of her wish to keep the Prince wait- 
ing for probably three or four years, at the risk of ruining all his 
prospects for life, until she might feel inclined to marry. And 
the Prince has since told her that he came over in 1839 with the 
intention of telling her that he could not now wait for a decision, 
as he had done at a former period when this marriage was first 
talked about. The only excuse the Queen can make for herself 



THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 151 

is in the fact that the sudden change from the secluded life of 
Kensington to the independence of her position as Queen 
Regnant at the age of eighteen put all ideas of marriage out of 
her mind, which she now most bitterly regrets. A worse school 
for a young girl, or one more detrimental to all natural feelings 
and affections, cannot well be imagined than the position of a 
queen at eighteen without experience, and without a husband to 
guide and support her. This the Queen can state from painful 
experience, and she thanks God that none of her dear daughters 
are exposed to such danger." 

Three years had passed since the young cousins had met, 
when on October 10, 1839, the Queen received the Coburg 
Princes at the head of the great staircase at Windsor Castle. 
On the 15 th the Queen informed Lord Melbourne that she 
had made up her mind to the marriage. He replied in 
words she bitterly recalled in her after life, that he was very 
glad, for that " a woman could not stand alone for any time 
in any position." 

But this intimation to Lord Melbourne preceded the pro- 
posal of marriage which etiquette required should be made 
by the Queen. She sent for Prince Albert the next day, 
inexpressibly shrinking from the necessity of reversing the 
usual relations between man and woman. 

How the Prince received what she had to say to him may 
be read in a letter he wrote at once to Baron Stockmar : " I 
write to you," he says, " on one of the happiest days of 
my life, to give you the best news possible. Victoria is so 
good and kind to me that I am often at a loss to under- 
stand that such affection should be shown to me." And 
the Queen on her part tells us that the Prince received her 
offer without any hesitation, and with the warmest demon- 
strations of kindness and affection. After a mutual expres- 
sion of their feelings of happiness, she adds that night in 
her diary, with the straightforwardness and simplicity which 
mark all the daily entries in her journal : — 

" How I will strive to make him feel as little as possible the 
great sacrifice he has made ! I told him it was a great sacrifice 
on his part, but he would not allow it. I then told him to fetch 
Ernest, who congratulated us both, and seemed very happy. 
He told me how perfect his brother was." 



152 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Here, too, is the letter in which Uncle Leopold expresses 
his joy at the good news : — 

My dearest Victoria, — Nothing could have given me 
greater pleasure than your dear letter. I had when I learned 
your decision almost the feeling of old Simeon: Now lettest Thou 
Thy servant depart in peace. Your choice has been for these 
last years my conviction of what would be best for your happi- 
ness ; and just because I was convinced of this, and knew how 
strangely fate often changes what one tries to bring about as 
being the best plan one could fix upon, I feared it could not 
happen. In your position, which may, and will, perhaps, become 
in future even more difficult in a political point of view, you could 
not exist without having a happy and agreeable mterietir; and I 
am much deceived (which I think I am not), or you will find in 
Albert just the quahties and disposition which are indispensable 
for your happiness, and which will suit your own character, tem- 
per, and mode of life. You say most amiably that you consider 
it a sacrifice on the part of Albert. This is true on many points, 
because his position will be a difficult one; but much, I may say 
all, will depend on your affection for him. If you love him and 
are kind to him he will easily bear the bothers of his position, 
and there is a steadiness, and at the same time a cheerfulness, 
in his character, which will facihtate this. 

Here is again a glimpse of the young pair as they enter 
on the familiar relations of their new life, drawn from the 
Queen's journal. She is mounted on her "dear old 
charger, Leopold," with her "beloved Albert, looking," 
she says, "so handsome in his uniform," to review the 
troops. It is piercingly cold and windy. Albert draws 
her fur cape closer round her throat as a protection, but 
she is concerned only to think how cold it must be for him 
in high cavalry boots and his gay uniform. 

Here, too, is the Prince's own account of the engage- 
ment, written in a letter to his grandmother : — 

" The Queen sent for me alone to her room a few days ago, 
and declared to me in a genuine outburst of love and affection 
that I had gained her whole heart, and that I would make her 
intensely happy if I would make her the sacrifice of sharing her 
life with her, for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice ; the 
only thing that troubled her was that she did not think herself 



THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 1 53 

worthy of me. The joyous openness of manner in which she 
told me this enchanted me. I was quite carried away by it. 
She is truly most good and most amiable, and I am sure 
Heaven has not given me over into evil hands." 

Here, too, is the Queen's account in her own journal of 
the manner in which, after the departure of Ernest and 
Albert for Germany, she announced her engagement to 
her Privy Council. Eighty gentlemen were present in 
the Council Hall " when," says the Queen, " I went in. 
The room was full, but I hardly knew who was there. 
Lord Melbourne I saw looking kindly at me with tears in 
his eyes, but he was not near me. I then read my short 
declaration. I felt that my hands shook, but I did not 
make one mistake. I felt most happy and thankful when 
it was over." And then she records that her bracelet 
with the Prince's portrait in it had seemed to give her 
courage. 

I have already said that the announcement of her mar- 
riage in Parliament was attended with considerable Par- 
liamentary altercation which annoyed the Queen extremely. 
Prince Albert and his family, however, behaved with great 
prudence and dignity. 

Late in January, in bitterly cold weather, the young 
bridegroom left Coburg and Gotha for the country of his 
adoption. On February 6 he crossed the Channel in a 
storm with a heavy sea, and the moment he set foot on 
land had to collect himself, and appear equal to the occa- 
sion, receiving graciously the congratulations showered 
upon him by official personages, and responding with 
cordiality to the demonstrations of the populace. The 
hearty welcome he received was a great relief to the 
Prince, who had feared from the debates in Parliament, 
concerning his allowance, that his marriage was not ac- 
ceptable to the country. The Prince brought hardly any 
Germans in his suite ; but he brought his beloved grey- 
hound, Eos, an animal of rare intelligence, whom he had 
trained from puppyhood. She was jet black, except one 
white paw, and a white streak on her nose. She died 



154 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

four years after her master's marriage, and is buried on 
the slopes at Windsor. 

The wedding-day which had opened cloudy and lower- 
ing became Queen's weather as the hours went on. The 
streets were thronged. No scaffoldings were erected in 
the streets, but chairs were let at one and two dollars 
apiece, and the bare trees were full of spectators. The 
Prince had been lodged at Buckingham Palace. The 
Chapel Royal where the wedding was to take place was 
at the Palace of St. James. 

The marriage took place February lo, 1840, at 10 a. m., 
the orthodox hour at that day for English marriages. The 
Prince wore the uniform of a British Field Marshal, with 
the collar, ribbon, and other insignia of the Garter. The 
Queen wore no diamonds on her head, but a simple wreath 
of orange blossoms. Her magnificent veil did not cover 
her face, but hung down over her shoulders. A pair of 
very large diamond ear-rings (Prince Albert's gift), a 
diamond necklace, and the insignia of the Garter, were 
all her ornaments. There were many ladies present. 
The young were all in white dresses. Every lady was 
presented with a wedding, favor tied up with flowers. The 
Queen, on entering the chapel from the interior of the 
palace, wore her robes of ermine and purple. These, 
before the ceremony, she laid aside. 

The bridegroom entered after the bride. His father 
and his brother were with him. The contemporary ac- 
count says, " he held his prayerbook in his hand, and his 
form, dress, and demeanor made every one admire him." 
He kissed the hand of the Queen Dowager, and then 
waited till the Queen should be conducted to the altar 
by the Bishops present. 

Twelve unmarried ladies, daughters of dukes, marquises, 
or earls, bore the Queen's train and acted as bridesmaids. 
The Queen looked moved and excited. Her dress was 
white satin. Her lace was Honiton. 

On reaching the altar the Queen knelt in private prayer, 
then took her seat in the chair of State. After a few seconds 




PRINCE ALBERT. 

(At the time of his marriage.') 



THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 1 55 

she rose, and then, as she stood beside her bridegroom, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury began to read the service. Her 
uncle, the Duke of Sussex, gave her away. 

The guns of the Tower thundered out the announcement 
as soon as the young couple were pronounced man and wife. 
Then all the wedding guests passed by them, and when all 
had gone the bride stepped aside and kissed the Queen 
Dowager. Then, leaning on her husband's arm, she left the 
chapel. They passed back into the Throne Room of the 
Palace, where the necessary parish register was signed. 
They then returned to Buckingham Palace for breakfast. 
After the breakfast was over bride and bridegroom changed 
their dresses, — the Prince for a dark travelling suit, the 
Queen for a white satin pehsse, trimmed with swan's-down, 
with a white satin bonnet and feather. And so ended this 
sweet royal idyl, and so began their happy married life of 
one-and-twenty years. 

Prince Albert's was a character that time and experience 
were calculated to ripen. When he married he was scarcely 
more than a very, very good boy ; he developed into 
Tennyson's Ideal Man, being avowedly King Arthur in the 
*' Idyls of a King." As Albert the Good he will always be 
known and loved in England. History will not be able to 
point to one flaw in his character, — to one deed that the 
sternest moralist would have wished undone. If he had a 
fault it was the fault the lover in " Maud " finds in the face 
of his mistress, — " faultily perfect." As such he might 
not have commanded our sympathies, had it not been that 
these are all called out by the passionate, tender, admir- 
ing devotion of the wife who so loved him, and so mourns 
for him. 

So husband and wife settled down into their married life, 
in which the extreme judiciousness of the young husband is 
remarkable. Never would he go anywhere by himself, but was 
always attended by an equerry when the Queen was not with 
him. He took a tutor in English Constitutional Law, and 
he and the Queen read Hallam's '' Constitutional History of 
England " together. Together they etched, and sang, and 



156 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

played upon the piano and the organ. Together they en- 
joyed everything, and, as time went on, the Prince became 
more and more associated with the Queen in public affairs, 
bearing, however, always in mind the maxim that his public 
existence must be merged in hers. 

The late hours of the court had been at first very trying 
to him, but these were soon modified as far as the personal 
habits of husband and wife were concerned. The Prince 
read aloud a great deal to the Queen. Dinner was at eight 
p. M., and usually there was company. In the evening the 
Prince often played at double-chess (whatever that may be).. 
The Prince loved fresh air and a country life ; his wife, whose 
early years had been passed in seclusion, loved London and 
gayety. It was not long, however, before their tastes har- 
monized. Music was always a great pleasure to the pair. 
Both played and sang well. Lablache was the Queen's 
singing-master ; she herself says of him most truly that 
he was not only " one of the finest bass singers, but one of 
the best actors, both in comedy and tragedy. He was also 
a remarkably clever, gentlemanlike man, full of anecdote and 
knowledge, warm-hearted and kind. He was very tall and 
immensely large, but had a remarkably fine head and coun- 
tenance. He used to be called Le Gros de Naples. The 
Prince and Queen had a sincere regard for him. He died 
in 1858. His father was a Frenchman, and his mother an 
Irishwoman." 

Who that remembers Lablache, either on the stage or in 
private life, will not join heartily in these words of apprecia- 
tion from the lips of his royal pupil ? 

Prince Albert played a great deal on the organ. " To 
the organ," said one of the ladies of the Household, "he 
seemed to pour out his whole soul." 

It was only a few months after their marriage when the 
Queen and Prince went through one of those terrible experi- 
ences which make uneasy many " a head that wears a crown." 
Here is the Prince's account of what took place, written to 
his grandmother : — 



THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 1 57 

Buckingham Palace, June 11, 1840. 
Dear Grandmamma, — I hasten to give you an account of 
an event which might otherwise be misrepresented to you, which 
endangered my hfe and that of Victoria, but from which we 
escaped under the watchful hand of Providence. We drove out 
yesterday, about six o'clock, to pay Aunt Kent a visit, and to 
take a turn round Hyde Park. We drove in a small phaeton. I 
sat on the right, Victoria on the left. We had hardly proceeded 
a hundred yards from the Palace when I noticed on the foot- 
path, on my side, a little, mean-looking man, holding something 
toward me ; before I could distinguish what it was, a shot was 
fired which almost stunned us both, it was so loud, and fired 
scarcely six paces from us. Victoria had just turned to the left 
to look at a horse, and could not, therefore, understand why her 
ears were ringing, as, from its being so very near, she could 
hardly distinguish that it proceeded from a shot having been 
fired. The horses started, and the carriage stopped. I seized 
Victoria's hands, and asked if the fright had not shaken her, but 
she laughed at the thing. I then looked again at the man, who 
was still standing in the same place, his arms crossed, and a 
pistol in each hand. His attitude was so theatrical and affected 
it quite amused me. Suddenly he again presented his pistol, 
and fired a second time. This time Victoria also saw the shot, 
and stooped quickly, pulled down by me. The ball must have 
passed just above her head. . . . The people, who had been 
petrified at first, now rushed upon him. I called to the postilion 
to go on, and we arrived safely at Aunt Kent's. From thence 
we took a short drive through the Park, partly to give Victoria 
a little air, partly also to show the public that we had not, in 
consequence of what had happened, lost confidence in them. . . . 
The name of the culprit is Edward Oxford. He is seventeen 
years old, a waiter in a low inn, not mad, I think, but quiet and 
composed. 

The Prince early began making public speeches, and he 
spoke English very well, though with a slight German 
accent. His intercourse with the Queen was generally 
held in German. 

At the time of the marriage, Lord Melbourne, foreseeing 
that it could not be long before the Tory party would of 
necessity come into power, urged the Queen to modify her 
dislike to them, and to hold out the olive branch. This 
view he impressed upon Prince Albert. The Regency Bill, 



158 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

passed before the birth of the Queen's first baby, making 
him Regent in case of his wife's death leaving a child, 
was passed without any opposition from Sir Robert Peel 
or the Duke of Wellington, and this pleased both husband 
and wife. November 21, 1840, the Princess Royal (the 
Empress Frederick) was born, and the following year the 
English nation was gratified by the birth of a Prince of 
Wales. Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise was the little Prin- 
cess's name. She was in her nursery a child of more char- 
acter and more self-will than her brother, whom she ruled 
completely in their early days. The Queen and Prince had 
their children as much with them as possible. The lady placed 
over the nursery was an admirable person, — Lady Lyttle- 
ton. The children probably led as healthful, happy English 
lives as any in England. Not more than a year and a half 
after the Queen's marriage, Sir Robert Peel carried in the 
House of Commons a vote of want of confidence in the Whig 
ministry, and Parliament was at once dissolved, to see if 
a new election would send up to the House members who 
were more favorable to Lord Melbourne's administration. 
His position with regard to the country had long been a 
painful one, and he had held on to office because the Queen 
could not bear to part from him whom she considered her 
fatherly adviser and best friend. 

The result of the elections proved that the country was 
thoroughly in opposition to Lord Melbourne and his friends. 
The ministry therefore resigned, and Sir Robert Peel and a 
Tory cabinet took their place. Lord Melbourne had given 
the wisest advice to the Queen, concerning her relations 
with her new advisers, and he had also given several hints 
to Sir Robert Peel as to how the Queen liked to be dealt 
with by her ministers ; especially he told him that she liked 
everything explained to her clearly and succinctly, and that 
he should talk with her, and treat her, as if she were a man. 
The question of the Household was now easily settled : 
Sir Robert was desirous of not pressing ungenerously on the 
Queen ; the Queen, advised by Lord Melbourne, was ready 
to make concessions. 



THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 1 59 

Lord Melbourne retired into strictly private life, but his 
home was lonely. To him his young Queen and pupil had 
stood in place of all domestic ties. He suffered from a 
stroke of paralysis ; he became weary of life, and very 
melancholy. The Queen and Prince constantly wrote let- • 
ters to him, and these seem to have given him some 
comfort in his affliction. 

On his death, in his seventieth year, in November, 1848, 
the Queen says in her journal : — 

" Truly and sincerely do I deplore the loss of one who was a 
most kind and disinterested friend of mine, and most sincerely 
attached to me. He was indeed for the first two years and a 
half of my reign almost the only friend I had, except Stockmar 
and Lehzen, and I used to see him constantly, — daily. I 
thought much of him and talked much of him all day." 

But the day of his retirement from office may be said to have 
been virtually the day he died to his Queen and to the world. 

When I was at boarding-school in England, first at Nor- 
wich, and afterwards near London, from 1831 to 1835, 
O'Connell was the ogre and bete noir of those little semi- 
conventual establishments. My father admired O'Connell. 
Every girl with whom I associated reflected what she heard 
in her own home, and believed him to be an incarnation of 
the devil. I had thus early opportunities of being prejudiced 
both for and against him, and even now I could not venture 
to offer any estimate of his worth or of his character. I 
confine myself to narrative, merely saying that it seems to 
me O'Connell was the ideal Irishman, — the Irishman of 
Irish fiction, tender, turbulent, and master of vituperation, 
tenacious of purpose, eloquent of speech, active, audacious, 
belligerent, and swayed .more by feeling than by reason, 
like his countrymen. 

He was born in August, 1775, in the wildest and most 
western part of Ireland. His family had long owned an 
estate called Darrynane, which at the time of his birth was 
held by a childless uncle, who, however adopted him, and 



l60 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

made him his heir. His father was a tradesman in a coun- 
try town, carrying on a smugghng trade with France in 
silks and laces. Another uncle had gone into the French 
service, and before the Revolution rose to be Count O'Con- 
nell and a major-general. In 1 794, many of the regiments 
in the Irish brigade were drafted into the British service, 
and the General received a colonel's commission from his 
Majesty George III. 

Owing to the operation of the Penal Laws, no Irish 
Roman Catholic could openly receive a hberal education in 
his own country ; so Daniel and his brother were sent to 
the Jesuit College at St. Omer, where they came near being 
among the victims of Revolutionary fury when the col- 
lege was broken up, in 1792, and its inmates dispersed. 
This early experience enlisted the sympathies of O'Connell 
for the Church, and against the Revolution. 

Having got safely back to Ireland, he chose the law as 
his profession ; for, as a recent biographer has said, he " had 
the legal turn of the Irish mind, — subtle, ready, disputa- 
tious, acute. The warfare of the law courts fascinated the 
Irish, as it has never done the English. A trial was an 
arena in which wit and craft, eloquence and cunning, per- 
formed a drama which spectators fully understood, and 
which they followed with enthusiasm." 

It was in a law court that O'Connell changed his political 
views, — his sympathies having, in 1794, been enhsted for 
a prisoner tried for conspiracy at the Old Bailey. He 
had nothing, however, to do with the cause of the United 
Irishmen in 1798, being possibly prevented from joining 
the society by a serious illness, which laid him up at 
Darrynane. 

It was not long before his power of bullying witnesses, 
his adroit and audacious way of uttering home truths to the 
judges, his wit and his keen sympathies, brought him great 
popularity among his countrymen, especially among the 
peasantry. He also always sought allies among the priests, 
who at that day possessed little education, but immense 
power. 



O'CONNELL AND IRELAND. l6l 

As I have said, after the RebeUion of 1 798, Mr. Pitt, see- 
ing the great danger of a hostile Ireland so near the English 
coast during the continuance of such a struggle with France 
as he foresaw, was desirous of binding the two countries 
together, and proposed two measures to that end : the union 
of Great Britain and Ireland, and the removal of Roman 
Catholic disabilities. To this latter measure George III. 
persisted he would never give his consent, and any allusion 
to it brought on such agitation that it was more than once 
almost fatal, while his mind was oscillating between insanity 
and reason. Pitt therefore abandoned the measure, and 
resigned his office. The Rebellion of 1798 was that of the 
United Irishmen ; that is, a combination of the Presby- 
terians of Northern Ireland, who sympathized with the 
Revolution in France, and the Roman Catholic peasantry 
in the South of the island. Mr. Pitt, before he quitted 
office, procured some relief for the Roman Catholics, and 
a very extended franchise, so that all tenants could vote 
who held leases for land that paid rent forty shilhngs (|io) 
a year. At once the Irish landlords secured the votes of 
their tenants, and this laid the foundation of some of the 
hostility between landlord and tenant, which is the bane of 
Ireland at this day. 

No sooner was the Union effected in 1800 than Irish 
agitation began, and shook even the Imperial Parliament. 
In vain both Whig and Tory ministers attempted to pacify 
Ireland by obtaining for Roman Catholics instalments of 
political "relief." The King, when sane, persisted that 
concessions would violate his coronation oath, and when 
he was insane the Prince Regent took refuge in his filial 
duty not to sanction a measure that if the King recovered 
would certainly again bring on his malady. 

For some years O'Connell's character for turbulence and 
vituperation made him unacceptable to such of the nobility 
and old moneyed men of Ireland as had joined the popular 
movement. He was the man of the peasantry ; but in 18 11 
he became the acknowledged agitator and leader of the 
Irish Party. 

II 



1 62 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

In 1812, the Irish, relying on the promises of the Prince 
Regent, expected great rehef from his being fully intrusted 
with the royal power. But the Prince had ceased to be a 
Whig. It cost him little to break his promises. He pleaded 
filial consideration for the opinions of his father. This dis- 
appointment roused in Ireland the most bitter feelings. 
O'Connell declared openly for Repeal, — repeal of the 
union between England and Ireland, — that which, with 
some federal modifications, is now known to us as Home 
Rule. Of the wisdom of this policy there may be doubt, 
but of the eagerness and devotion of its leader there can 
be none. 

In 18 1 5, O'Connell fought a duel with an Irish gentle- 
man named L'Esterre. The quarrel was first political, then 
personal. O'Connell fired low, not meaning to kill his 
adversary, but unfortunately wounded him so severely that 
he died the next day ; and O'Connell was filled with life- 
long remorse. He settled a pension on L'Esterre's widow, 
and never afterwards passed his house without lifting his hat, 
and making a prayer for the repose of his soul. In spite of 
this remorse, however, he the same year accepted a challenge 
from Peel, then Chief Secretary for Ireland. It is hard to 
imagine Sir Robert Peel adopting the French plan of shoot- 
ing an irrepressible political enemy. The duel happily did 
not take place, nor did O'Connell ever fight again. He did 
not, however, modify the bitterness of his provocations in 
consequence of this determination. 

In the autumn of 182 1, George IV. went over to Ireland, 
and was enthusiastically welcomed by the Irish people. He 
received the news of his wife's death as he was stepping 
ashore, and paid her the tribute of twenty-four hours' retire- 
ment before he rushed into the gayeties that awaited him. 
A temporary reconciliation was proclaimed between Catho- 
lics and Protestants. O'Connell was offered a high law 
position under the Crown, and, when the King departed, 
knelt, and presented him a laurel crown. All his life 
he professed loyalty to his sovereign, and seems sincerely 
to have felt it. But the bright hopes of 1821 were soon 



a CONN ELL AND IRELAND. 1 63 

clouded by disappointment. The winter was one of out- 
rage, agitation, and famine. 

It would be useless here to relate the plan of campaign 
formed by O'Connell. Agitation for Catholic Emancipa- 
tion was kept up till the passage of the bill in 1829, and 
then, while all England was roused by the cry of Reform, 
Ireland was convulsed by agitation for Repeal.^ 

During these years the landlord and tenant question 
grew more and more exasperating in Ireland, and the 
Roman Catholic Relief Bill, which it had taken thirty 
years to pass, had no effect on the new causes of 
agitation. 

The bill admitted Roman Catholics to Parliament, and 
to all lay offices under the Crown, except those of Lord 
Chancellor or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Monasteries 
and the Jesuits were suppressed. Officials were forbidden 
to wear the insignia of their office at Roman Catholic cere- 
monies. At the same time the forty-shilling franchise was 
suppressed, and the qualification for an Irish voter became 
the same as that for an English one. 

Meanwhile O'Connell had been elected to Parliament, 
but he did not take his seat for some months, the usual 
oaths that required a new member to abjure the Pope not 
having been modified. He returned to Ireland furious, and 
announced as his parliamentary programme that he should 
agitate for a return to the forty-shilling franchise ; an equal 
distribution of the revenues of the Established Church 
between the poor of all denominations and the most 
meritorious of the Protestant clergy; he would demand 
the cleansing of the Augean stable of the law, and the 
abolition of " that cursed monopoly," the East India 
Company. 

1 In the spring of 1846, I met the Sage of Chelsea and his wife 
at dinner at Mr. Bancroft's (then American Minister in England). 
The conversation having turned on the condition of Ireland, Carlyle 
remarked, half to himself and half to the company, that there would 
be no end to disorder and agitation in Ireland till she was dipped for 
twenty-four hours under the sea. He was subsequently put through 
a course of Irish politics by Mr. Duffy. 



1 64 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

When he took his seat in Parliament he proved himself 
a great debater, and some of his eloquent speeches were so 
full of pathos that on one occasion Charles Dickens, then a 
reporter, laid down his pen, saying he was too much moved 
by the speaker's words to write more of his speech. 

As he gave up a large professional income to attend to 
his duties in Parliament, he allowed himself to be supported 
by what was called the " Rent." " Punch " caricatured him 
ten years after, as " The Great Beggarman." 

He spoke brilliantly in the House of Commons in favor 
of the Reform Bill, and trusted that the Whig ministry 
would in return do something in favor of Repeal ; but Lord 
Stanley expressed the feelings of the ministry when he said 
afterwards, " Ireland had to be taught to fear before she 
could be taught to love." 

O'Connell had taught the Irish how to agitate ; and he 
at length began to find that knowledge turned against 
himself. He was not considered by the hot youth of his 
party to go far enough. They said he had done nothing to 
effect Repeal. We have seen with what Irish enthusiasm 
he hailed the accession of the youthful Queen ; and in 
those days he said publicly '' that he was still for giving a 
fair trial to the Union ; he would confidently intrust the 
fortunes of the Irish people to the British Parliament ; " 
but if the results proved that Parliament incapable of doing 
justice to Ireland, he would " again unfurl the standard of 
Repeal." 

The Young Ireland Party, as it was now called, broke ofl" 
from the " uncrowned king," and was in favor of a resort 
to arms. O'Connell deprecated violence. His position was 
that which Minerva enjoined upon Achilles in his famous 
quarrel with Agamemnon : " Wound him with words if thou 
wilt, but refrain from wounding him with the sword." 
" O'Connell was no revolutionist," says Justin McCarthy. 
" He had from his education in a French college acquired 
an early detestation of the principles of the French Revolu- 
tion. Of the Irish rebels of '98 he spoke with as savage an 
intolerance as the narrowest English Tories could show in 



O'CONNELL AND IRELAND. 16$ 

speaking of himself. . . . He grew angry at tiie slightest 
expression of an opinion among his followers that seemed 
to denote even a willingness to discuss any of the doctrines 
of Communism." 

His popularity had begun to wane. In 1841 his "tail," 
as it was the fashion to call his supporters in Parliament, 
was reduced to four. He had been long enough away from 
Ireland to forget that it was useless to talk reason to his 
followers. Davis, Duffy, and Smith O'Brien, — leaders of the 
faction that opposed him, — raised the enthusiasm of their 
followers by making them believe themselves a nation, and 
talking to them of Brian Boru. But O'Connell had abated 
no jot of heart or hope. He prophesied that 1843 would 
be the year of Repeal for Ireland. It was instead the 
year of his own downfall. He proposed to hold monster 
meetings all over Ireland. These meetings, attended by 
from 150,000 to 300,000 people, were well managed and 
orderly. The men of each parish came marshalled by their 
priests. O'Connell's superb voice is said to have reached 
even to the outskirts of the crowd. 

At last, on Oct. 8, 1843, when one of these meetings, 
likely to number 600,000 people, was to be held at Clontarf 
near Dublin, the Lord Lieutenant decided to interfere. He 
issued a proclamation prohibiting the meeting, " as calcu- 
lated to excite reasonable and well grounded apprehension." 
Crowds from the surrounding country were already pouring 
into Clontarf; great disorder would assuredly have occurred 
but for the promptitude of O'Connell. He declared that 
the orders of the Lord Lieutenant must be obeyed. But 
with the suppression of the Clontarf meeting O'Connell's 
fate was sealed. The Irish national movement split in two. 
The Radical faction asserted that all done for the cause by 
their great leader had been but a gigantic sham. 

The Irish government, ungrateful for the counter procla- 
mation which had prevented violence and peaceably dis- 
persed the crowds at Clontarf, indicted O'Connell and three 
other Irish leaders for conspiracy, and they were committed 
to the Dublin jail. They appealed, however, to the House 



1 66 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of Lords, which reversed the sentence after they had been 
confined a year. But O'Connell's health, as well as power, 
had been broken. He made a last appearance in Parlia- 
ment, "a feeble old man muttering before a table." To 
the honor of the House of Commons, "respect for the 
great Parliamentary personage kept all as orderly as if the 
fortunes of a party hung upon his rhetoric." 

He had an eager wish before he died to reach Rome. 
L'Esterre's death, it is thought, was still heavy on his 
heart, and he desired a Papal assurance of forgiveness and 
benediction. At Arras he was visited by a canon of the 
cathedral, who says " his thoughts seemed occupied by 
one idea, though he forbade me to speak of it, — the 
misfortunes of Ireland and the follies of O'Brien." 

In Paris the physicians told him he was dying of a 
lingering congestion of the brain, of two or three years 
standing. He never reached Rome. He died in Genoa, 
May 15, 1847, "all the city praying for him." He sent 
his heart to Rome, but his body is buried in Ireland. 



CHAPTER VIL 

THE CABUL MASSACRE. 

A S we all know, the first English settlement in India was 
■^"^ made by a mere trading company, which needed a 
factory, as they called it, not for purposes of manufacture, 
but to carry on their commerce with the country. The 
first possession of the Crown of England in India was the 
island of Bombay, on the west coast, received from 
Portugal as part of the dowry of Charles II. 's queen, 
Catherine of Braganza. Whoever wishes to read the early 
history of India, brilliant, picturesque, and without one 
tedious word, will find it in Lord Macaulay's articles on 
Warren Hastings and Lord Clive. Clive brings us to the 
days of Wellington and the battle of Assaye ; that is, to 
the early years of the nineteenth century. 

How the East India Company enlisted an army of its 
own, and had its well-armed merchant navy ; how it was 
required to accept a Governor-General as an appointment 
from the cabinet in England ; what were its merits, and 
what its acknowledged deficiencies, — cannot be related here 
within our present compass. Those who wish to know all 
about the history of the Company's Raj (or government, 
whence the word Rajah) must find it elsewhere. Suffice it 
to say that the Indian Empire grew, not by design, but by 
the force of events, until, in 1849, it almost reached to the 
Himalayas on the north, and to the Indus on the west, 
while on the east its limits were the Ganges and the sea. 

The Empire had its natural boundaries, and British India 
had no call to extend itself beyond them. To do so was, 
in the opinion of the Duke of WelHngton, and of all old 
statesmen who knew India well, a very great blunder. 



1 68 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The British Government was bound to keep in India a 
certain number of regiments of the Une (white men) ; 
while the Company's troops were mainly Sepoys (so called 
from the native word Sipahis). The Sepoys in Bengal 
were native Hindoos of the soldier, or the Brahmin, caste, 
commanded by English officers. The Company had also 
regiments of native cavalry in its pay ; these were principally 
Mohammedans, and were kept up, in consideration of a 
subsidy, by native princes. 

Now, in the perpetual struggle going on between Eng- 
land and Russia, England seeks to prevent Russia from 
destroying the Turkish Empire and taking possession of 
Constantinople, while Russia in return threatens the peace 
and permanency of her Indian Empire. Russia also, desir- 
ing, above all things, outlets to the open ocean, would 
probably very much like to secure a footing on the Persian 
Gulf. At present, she can keep a fleet in the Black Sea, 
but her war-ships cannot pass the Dardanelles and get into 
the Mediterranean. She can keep a navy in the Baltic, 
where it may be frozen in half the year, and she can main- 
tain one in the White Sea, whence, for a few months in the 
year, her ships can get out by sailing through the Arctic 
Ocean ; but she has no open sea-coast but that of Siberia 
and Kamschatka. 

West of the Indus, between that river, Persia, and the 
Persian Gulf, lies the mountain kingdom of Afghanistan. 
To the west it borders upon Persia ; southeast it is separated 
from British India by deserts and mountain passes. It has 
three principal cities, Cabul, Herat, and Candahar, and 
it is studded all over with castles belonging to mountain 
chiefs, who lead a life very like that of the Free Barons 
of the German Empire under the feudal system. The 
people are brave, warlike, active, and intelligent, — a peo- 
ple to be by no means down-trodden or despised. They are 
all Mohammedans ; to a certain extent they are chivalrous : 
but are proud of their independence, and strongly attached 
to their native hills. Moreover, they know their own value. 
They knew that the English wanted them, at the least, to 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 169 

be their allies in their struggle with Russia ; they knew that 
Russia desired to propitiate them, for the same reason. 
Perpetual Russian intrigues are carried on with the prin- 
cipal chiefs, and sometimes Russia punishes their sovereign 
for not listening to her overtures by stirring up Persia 
against him. Living where they do, they could be crushed 
at once if their country were a plain ; but it is, on the con- 
trary, a region of snow mountains, a — 

" Land of dark heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood ; " 

a land of rocky crags and dangerous mountain-passes. 
Herat lies near the frontier of Persia. It once was a beauti- 
ful city, with noble Saracen ruins, and the remains of a 
Mohammedan monastery, with a plain around it covered 
with apple and plum orchards, — a very garden of the earth, 
shut in by hills. Herat, however, has not much to do 
with this part of our history, the scene of which lies in 
Cabul. 

As far back as the summer months of 1837, when Queen 
Victoria's reign began, the witches' caldron on these Afghan 
hills began to boil and bubble. At that time an English 
officer. Captain Alexander Burnes (a relative of the great 
poet Burns, though he spelled his name differently), arrived 
as a traveller in Cabul. He was, however, directed by his 
Government to see what could be done towards finding a 
market for English goods in Afghanistan, and he was well 
received by the Ameer, Dost Mohammed. 

Up to 1 713, Afghanistan had had no general govern- 
ment. The feudal chiefs each governed his own clan, like 
Highland chieftains. In that year an enterprising person- 
age took possession of Herat, and established a sort of 
dominion over the hill tribes and the people of the valleys, 
forming what was called the Douranee dynasty. On the 
north and east the Douranee Empire was bounded by snow 
mountains ; on the south and west, by vast sandy plains. 
It included, however, the fertile lands of Scinde and Cash- 
mere. It separated British India from Persia, — a country 



170 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

very liable to be swayed by Russian influence, — and it 
formed an important barrier between Russian progress and 
the British power in India. 

When the nineteenth century opened, the founder of the 
Douranee dynasty atid his successor were dead, and a 
fratricidal war had broken out between two brothers. One 
of these, Zermanu Shah, was dethroned by his brother 
Mohammed, who put out his eyes, in accordance with the 
custom of the East ; and the blind, discrowned potentate 
sought an asylum in British India. Before long, Moham- 
med was deposed by another brother, Shah Soojah-ool- 
Moulk, a weak and incapable tyrant, who governed so 
badly that his subjects rose up and got rid of him. His 
brother Mohammed (whose eyes he had neglected to put 
out) returned to Afghanistan and dethroned him. Shah 
Soojah sought refuge in Scinde, with its great chief, Runjeet 
Singh, who not only imprisoned him, but extorted from 
him the glorious diamond he had with him, the Koh-i-noor, 
the Mountain of Light. Runjeet placed it in an idol 
temple in Lahore. It was there captured about twenty- 
one years later by the soldiers of an English regiment, who 
were persuaded by their officers to' present it to Queen 
Victoria. 

Shah Mohammed governed just as ill as Shah Soojah, so 
that his subjects were well pleased when his Vizier, Futteh 
Khan, deposed him. Futteh again was deposed by his 
younger brother, Dost Mohammed. And here we reach a 
name of real importance in history. 

We must understand, therefore, that when Queen Vic- 
toria came to her throne. Dost Mohammed was ruler of 
Afghanistan, with the exception of Herat and Scinde. 
Herat was governed by a descendant of the early Dour- 
anee conqueror, and Scinde, which had broken away from 
Afghanistan, was governed by its own ruler, Runjeet Singh. 
Shah Soojah had made his escape out of that chieftain's 
hands in 1833, and was living on a pension paid him by 
the English Government. 

Now, as Napoleon had pointed out to the Emperor Paul, 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 171 

the way to British India Hes through Afghanistan. There 
are but two practicable passes southvvestward over the great 
mountain chain, and both are reached through Afghanistan. 
These are the Khyber Pass and the Bolan Pass. The Khyber 
is sixty miles long ; and the Bolan, more to the south, is 
both dangerous and difficult. Those who in former days 
have crossed the Alps by the Pass of the St. Gothard, where 
Suwarrow and the Russians fought every inch of the way 
with Mass^na and his Frenchmen, will remember how on 
each side of them rose high cliffs that seemed to touch the 
sky, while far below, at the bottom of these cliffs, rushes a 
rocky, narrow, foaming river. What the St. Gothard Pass is 
for about eight miles, the Khyber was for sixty. 

When Alexander Burnes found himself in Cabul in 1837, 
Russia was making strenuous efforts to form an alliance 
with Dost Mohammed, a sovereign of ability and vigor, 
much liked and admired by his own people. The Russians 
had already incited Persia to attack the ruler of Herat, and 
hoped thus to acquire a footing in the northwestern corner 
of Afghanistan. 

Dost Mohammed preferred an alliance with the English, 
and he urged Captain Burnes to procure him a sum of 
money from the English Government, on receipt of which 
he said he would send the Russian envoys out of his domin- 
ions, and, in case of need, put all his splendid cavalry at the 
disposition of the English, if England would pay for their 
services. 

Alexander Burnes believed him quite sincere, as the 
world in general has long since done ; but that was not the 
view of the matter taken by Lord Auckland, then Governor- 
General of India, or by Lord Palmerston, Minister for For- 
eign Affairs. Economy in India was just then the order 
of the day. Lord Palmerston and Lord Auckland thought 
they could attain their end more cheaply than by paying 
;^ 1 00,000 a year to Dost Mohammed. They drew Shah 
Soojah out of his retirement, made believe that he was the 
darling of the Afghan people, stigmatized Dost Mohammed 
as a usurper, and picked a quarrel with him because he 



172 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was trying to recover the lost province of Scinde from 
Runjeet Singh. It was resolved to push a British army 
across the Indus, and then, through the Khyber and Bolan 
Passes, advance on Cabul and Candahar. Shah Soojah, 
under British protection, was to remount the throne from 
which he had been driven twenty years before. 

In vain the Duke of Wellington deprecated sending a 
British army across the Indus, which, he said, was British 
India's natural northwest boundary. In vain old gover- 
nor-generals represented the rashness of the enterprise. 
In vain Alexander Burnes wrote moving letters on behalf 
of Dost Mohammed. In vain the Sepoy troops mutinied 
when they learned they were to be ordered to climb frozen 
heights and invade a foreign land. Lord Palmerston held 
to his policy, Lord Auckland carried it out ; and on Novem- 
ber 29, 1838, in the dominions of Runjeet Singh, at the foot 
of the Himalayas, a grand review was held of what was then 
called The Army of the Indus. In all there were fifteen 
thousand men, chiefly Sepoys, with English officers ; but 
the camp followers of the soldiers outnumbered them four 
to one. Six thousand of these men in the Army of the 
Indus were under the command of a cruel, vicious tyrant, 
son of Shah Soojah, called Prince Timour. These were to 
go through the Khyber Pass, while nine thousand others, 
under the command of Sir John Keene, were to take their 
way through the Bolan Pass, approaching Cabul from the 
south. 

The army marched through Scinde, Shah Soojah stirring 
up opposition and discontent wherever he passed. It 
crossed the Indus January 16, 1839, and had then one 
hundred and forty-six miles to march across a desert of 
hard salt, mixed with sand, to the mouth of the Bolan Pass. 
The sufferings of the Hindoos were terrible, and the route 
was strewn with the dead bodies of their camels, of which 
they had had thirty thousand at the start. 

Here is a description of what they endured when they 
entered the Pass : — 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 73 

" The Bolan Pass is nearly sixty miles in length, of continued 
and often very rapid ascent, shut in with stupendous or wooded 
cliffs on either side. The joyful sound of rushing waters was 
here to be heard ; but it little availed the thirsty troops, for the 
torrent which roared by their side was polluted by the multitude 
of dead animals which had fallen, or been thrown, into it by the ' 
advanced columns. The road was composed of sharp flint 
stones, which lamed the cattle, and such as fell behind were 
immediately seized by the marauding tribes which infested the 
flanks and rear of the army. The road was strewed with bag- 
gage, abandoned tents, and stores and luxuries which a few 
weeks before or after would have fetched their weight in gold. 
These were now cast aside, or left to be trampled by cattle in 
the rear." 

At length the worn-out troops emerged from the Pass, 
and beheld with unspeakable joy an open valley stretched 
out before them. 

" The clear, crisp climate," says another eye-witness, 
" braced the European frame ; and over the wide plain, 
bounded by mountain ranges, intersected by many spark- 
ling streams, and dotted with orchards and vineyards, the 
eye ranged with delight." 

But now supplies failed them. The army was brought 
almost to the verge of starvation. Water, too, failed ; not 
enough could be got with which to mix the medicines. 

At last Timour, Shah Soojah, and their army, which had 
entered Afghanistan by the Khyber Pass, reached Candahar. 
At Candahar the English officers soon found out how en- 
tirely fictitious was the supposed attachment of the Afghans 
to Shah Soojah and his dynasty. His unpopularity was 
immense. He had brought the Feringhees into the 
country to displace Dost Mohammed, who was generally 
admired and beloved ! 

Candahar was three hundred miles from Cabul, through 
a beautiful country; but Shah Soojah's army on its way 
had to pass or take the fortress of Ghuznee. It was cap- 
tured accordingly ;. but it was there that Shah Soojah made 
formidable enemies of the great fanatical religious body, 
the Ghiljzees, fifty of whom he caused to be cut to 



174 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

pieces at his feet, after they had surrendered themselves 
prisoners. 

The capture of Ghuznee took from Dost Mohammed all 
confidence in his own power to resist the British arms ; but 
he still made a brave and determined stand. His army 
however, was melting away. In vain he urged his people 
to stand by him while he made one last charge on the 
enemy. " In that onset," he exclaimed, " I shall fall ; then 
go and make your own terms with Shah Soojah." But his 
appeal was made in vain. With tears in his eyes, he 
turned his horse's head and fled to Cabul, whence he 
made his way into the Himalayas, and subsequently passed 
the range into Bokhara. 

August 7, 1839, Shah Soojah, with all imaginable pomp, 
made his entry into Cabul his capital ; but no voices bade 
him welcome. 

On the news reaching England, General Keene was 
raised to the peerage, and knighthood was bestowed on 
other prominent officers. But Wellington, and others who 
could judge of the reality of the success, still maintained 
that the English army had better take warning from the 
tale of Moscow. 

At the Indian entrance of the Khyber Pass stands the 
fortified city of Jellalabad. This place received a strong 
European garrison, Cabul was a walled town dominated 
by a citadel called the Bala-Hissar. In this was the palace 
of the Shah. 

It did not take long for the English agent. Sir William 
Macnaughten, to find out that it would be necessary to keep 
a large and permanent garrison of English troops in Cabul 
if Shah Soojah was to be maintained upon his throne ; for, 
the moment the English should march away, his subjects 
would dethrone him, and restore Dost Mohammed, whom 
the English policy had now doubtless converted into a 
bitter enemy. Nevertheless, the English officers who were 
married sent for their wives and children as soon as it was 
determined that a large English force should remain in 
Cabul till Shah Soojah was firmly seated on his throne. 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 175 

When I speak of the "English" troops, it must be un- 
derstood that about four-fifths of these were Sepoys, under 
Enghsh officers. 

One great difficulty made itself felt during the winter of 
1840 : Cabul was under three authorities, — Shah Soojah, the 
native ruler ; Sir William Macnaughten, the English agent ; 
and Sir Wilson Cotton, the English commanding general. 

Meantime war, pillage, and disorder went on through- 
out the country. Shah Soojah insisted on using the English 
troops to collect his taxes, and, in spite of all that could be 
done by British officers, all manner of wrongs and outrages 
were committed on his unfortunate subjects. Especially 
the fierce tribe of Ghiljzees, hereditary enemies of his 
dynasty, were opposed to him ; and a defeat they suffered 
from his troops by no means made them more placable. 

Meantime a party of English chased Dost Mohammed 
beyond the mountains and into the hands of that cruel 
and perfidious tyrant, the Khan of Bokhara, whose domin- 
ions have since been absorbed by Russia. Dost Moham- 
med, however, escaped from the Khan's hands, and 
succeeded in raising another body of followers. When 
reminded that his wives and children were in the hands 
of the British, he answered, " I have no family ; I have 
buried my children and my wives." 

Soon all the northern provinces of Afghanistan were in a 
flame. Afghan troops raised by Shah Soojah went over 
to Dost Mohammed. He did not, however, succeed at this 
time, but was again defeated, and driven into exile. 

" I am like a wooden spoon," he said ; " you may toss 
me as you will, you will not hurt me." Three months 
later, however, after a skirmish in which he had displayed 
desperate bravery, and 'obtained some advantage over the 
English, as Sir William Macnaughten was making prepara- 
tions to draw off his troops to Cabul, word was brought him 
that an Ameer wished to speak with him. To his amaze- 
ment, this man was Dost Mohammed, who, dismounting 
from his weary horse, put his sword into Sir William's hand, 
and surrendered himself prisoner. He had ridden over 



iy6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

sixty miles, and had been twenty-four hours in the saddle. 
He was treated with the greatest kindness and distinction, 
and Macnaughten, on sending him with a strong escort to 
Hindoostan, wrote to the Governor-General : — 

" I hope the Dost will be treated with liberality. The case of 
Shah Soojah is not parallel. The Shah had no claim on us ; we 
had no hand in depriving him of his dominion. Whereas we 
ejected the Dost, who had never offended us, in support of our 
policy, of which he was the victim." 

As time went on, there were conflicts of authority and 
heart-burnings among the English generals. One by one 
resigned, till the command devolved on General Elphin- 
stone, a kind-hearted old gentleman, a martyr to the gout, 
and little acquainted with the management of native troops, 
but who had served with credit under Wellington in the 
Peninsular War. Dost Mohammed, being in the hands of 
the English, the chieftainship among his supporters fell to 
his son, Akbar Khan. The three chief English generals 
under Elphinstone were Nott, Pollock, and Sale. The 
last, with a strong force, was placed in garrison at Jellala- 
bad to guard the Khyber Pass, while Lady Sale, his wife, 
remained at Cabul, with the rest of the English women 
and children. 

The military force at Cabul consisted of one English 
regiment, two Sepoy regiments, two Afghan regiments, 
some artillery and cavalry, five thousand fighting men in 
all, and fifteen thousand camp followers. 

Instead of putting stores, men, and artillery into the 
citadel of Cabul, the Bala-Hissar, Elphinstone encamped 
his men outside the city, separated them from their store- 
houses, and left the city undefended, while every day hatred 
of Shah Soojah and his English allies increased. 

Macnaughten was on the point of setting out for India, 
so secure did he feel that things were going on satisfactorily 
at Cabul, when, on the night of November 2, 1841, the 
house of Sir Alexander Burnes was attacked by a mob. 
Burnes had made himself obnoxious in Cabul because he 
encouraged breaches of domestic discipline among Afghan 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. I// 

ladies of rank, who were only too ready to receive atten- 
tions from him. He and his brother, after exhausting 
every endeavor to gain the good-will of their assailants, 
were brutally murdered while trying to escape from their 
house by a back way. Next the house of the paymaster 
of Shah Soojah's forces was attacked, a sum of _;^i 7,000 
was stolen, and riot^ murder, and pillage spread all over 
the city. Meantime the British troops remained quiet in 
their cantonments. General Elphinstone would not order 
them to act. The fort that contained provisions and 
ammunition was taken by the rioters, besides other sup- 
plies which had been carelessly stored. 

After the loss of all provisions and army stores, it became 
evident to every man among the British that the army 
could not pass the winter in Cabnl. There were also 
rumors among them that Shah Soojah was concerned in 
the plots against them. The charm of their invincibihty 
was broken. A slight check, however, was given on 
November 10 to the Afghans, and the English began to 
contemplate what they called " a not inglorious retreat." 
Assistance was invoked from the British garrisons at Jella- 
labad and Candahar; but the authorities in these places 
decided that to despatch soldiers to Cabul would be simply 
sending fresh victims to the slaughter. 

In an outlying position one brave Goorka regiment per- 
ished entirely ; only one private and two officers survived 
to bear the news into Cabul. After this the only chance 
for the doomed army would have been to take refuge in 
the Bala-Hissar and hold out, if their provisions would 
last, till succor came to them. The generals, however, dis- 
agreed, the citadel was abandoned, and it was resolved to 
open negotiations for the capitulation of the army. 

The Afghans would hear of no terms but unconditional 
surrender. This Macnaughten refused. " We shall meet, 
then," said the Afghan leader, " on the field of battle." 
"At all events," replied Macnaughten, "at the Day of 
Judgment." 

" Strange to say, while this conference was going on, 



178 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the Afghan soldiers, fully armed, were giving food to the 
soldiers of the English regiments, and shaking hands with 
them." 

Soon after, Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammed, rode 
into the Afghan camp. His arrival was hailed by his own 
people, and gave a gleam of hope to the English. Never- 
theless, in a few days their case became so desperate that 
a capitulation was agreed upon, more dishonorable than 
had ever happened to English arms. 

The British army was to evacuate Afghanistan as speedily 
as possible by the Khyber Pass, receiving assistance in 
transportation and provisions. When the troops reached 
Peshawar, Dost Mohammed and his family were to be 
restored to Cabul, and Shah Soojah was to return to 
India. The Afghans then were to enter into an alliance 
with England. 

On December 13, 1 841, in the depth of winter (and Cabul 
stands six thousand feet above the level of the sea), the 
small body of troops still remaining in the Bala-Hissar were 
marched out to begin their retreat. Shah Soojah remaining 
within its walls. The moment the soldiers left the citadel 
its guns were turned upon them, slaughtering indiscrimi- 
nately friend and foe. That night the soldiers passed 
unsheltered in the snow, unprovided with covering or pro- 
visions. Nothing, too, would satisfy the rabble that 
swarmed around them but obtaining possession of their 
arms. Imagine the condition of Sepoys, used to a tropi- 
cal climate, under these circumstances ! 

That night a proposal was made to Macnaughten on the 
part of Akbar Khan to murder one of the chief Afghan 
supporters of Shah Soojah, and relieve the English, pro- 
vided he was handsomely paid for doing so. Macnaughten 
replied that the English never paid for murder, but un- 
happily consented to see Akbar, and, if possible, to treat 
with him. Some of the officers about Macnaughten sus- 
pected treachery ; but he saw in the proposal a ray of hope, 
and, as he said, " Death would be preferable to the life of 
anxiety he had been leading for six weeks past." 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 179 

Macnaughten and three officers of his staff met Akbar 
on a hillock near the banks of the Cabul River, about six 
hundred yards from the English camp. " The English 
officers and Afghan chiefs exchanged salutations, and 
Akbar Khan received, with many thanks, an Arab horse 
which he had coveted. He also returned thanks for a 
pair of pistols which had been presented to him the pre- 
ceding day. It was then proposed that they should all 
dismount, which was done." 

Soon the Afghans began closing in upon the English 
party. Two of the English officers remonstrated, when 
Akbar suddenly cried, " Seize ! Seize ! " and the envoy 
and his party were grasped from behind. Macnaughten 
was grappled by Akbar himself. As he struggled, the 
Afghan chief drew one of the pistols, given him the day 
before, from his belt, and shot him through the back. The 
Afghans rushed upon him with their knives, and he was 
literally cut to pieces. His mangled remains were carried 
to the Great Bazaar of Cabul, exulted over, and treated with 
indignity. One of his staff died with him ; two others 
remained prisoners, but wounded. 

The envoy was killed in broad daylight by foul treachery, 
on an open plain ; but the English army was so utterly 
spirit-broken that no attempt was made to resent or to 
avenge his murder. A few hours after, General Elphin- 
stone, utterly incapacitated by illness, signed a new treaty, 
giving up most of the cannon, most of the men's guns, and 
six hostages for the return of Dost Mohammed. In vain 
Major Eldred Pottinger, the hero of Herat, whose exploits 
I have here no space to tell, urged that they should either 
cut their way through the enemy, or take refuge in the 
Bala-Hissar. 

When the men had to give up their guns, they realized 
their humiliation. At length all was accomplished, and 
the army set out, " more depressed," says Alison, " than 
the French in their retreat from Moscow." 

"Deep snow," says an eye-witness, "covered every inch of 
mountain and plain with one unspotted sheet of dazzling white; 



l80 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and so intensely bitter was the cold as to penetrate and defy the 
defences of the warmest clothing. Sad and suffering, issued 
from the British cantonments a confused mass of Europeans 
and Asiatics, — a mingled crowd of men of various climes and 
various complexions and habits, — part of them peculiarly un- 
fitted to endure the hardships of a rigorous climate, and many 
of a sex and tender age which generally exempts them from 
such scenes of horror." 

The number of the crowd was large, being forty-five hun- 
dred fighting men, of whom seven hundred were English. 
They had six guns, and three mounted train field-pieces ; 
they were also encumbered by twelve thousand camp-fol- 
lowers. As fast as they left the gates of the cantonments 
the Afghans began to fire on them, and to fill the air with 
loud exulting cries. Soon order was completely lost ; 
troops and camp-followers, horses and foot-soldiers, bag- 
gage, public and private property, became mixed up in 
inextricable confusion. Night came on as they pursued 
their weary course ; but around them the snow was lit up 
by reflections from the British Residency at Cabul, which 
had been set on fire by the Afghans the moment the troops 
were out of the city. The next day the march of the fugi- 
tives was still more distressing. 

" Two of the guns," says Lieutenant Eyre, an eye-witness, 
whose book the Duke of Wellington praised warmly to Charles 
Greville, — " two of the eight guns were abandoned, as the horses 
were unable to pull them through the snow. Although by night- 
fall we had only accomplished six miles of our weary journey, 
the road was covered with dying wretches, perishing under the 
intolerable cold. The Sepoys, patient and resigned, sank on 
the hne of march, awaiting death. Horses, ponies, baggage- 
wagons, and camp-followers and soldiers, were confusedly 
huddled together, while over all, the long guns of the Afghans, 
posted on the heights above, sent a storm of balls, every one of 
which took effect upon the multitude." 

Before night the enemy had gained possession of four 
other cannon. The soldiers, weary, frost-bitten, and starv- 
ing, could no longer make any resistance. 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. l8l 

" The army was in this dreadful state when it reached the 
entrance of the Coord Cabul defile. This narrowest part ot 
the Khyber Pass is five miles in length, and bordered on each 
side with steep overhanging mountains. It is so narrow that 
the sun never shines there. There is hardly room for a 
narrow rugged pathway between the torrent and the preci- 
pices. The stream dashes down the whole way with incon- 
ceivable velocity, and requires to be crossed in the five miles 
eight-and-twenty times. To add to the horrors of this defile, 
horses and beasts of burden could not keep their foodng on 
the ice." 

The wretched animals, struggling to preserve their foot- 
hold, slipped in great numbfers into the roaring water. 
The heights above were crowded by Afghans, who, in 
perfect security themselves, kept up an incessant fire 
on the confused and trembling multitude in the defile 
beneath them. 

The massacre was fearful in that dreadful gorge. Three 
thousand perished under the guns and knives of the Af- 
ghans ; and the English ladies, struggling with the rest, 
frequently lost sight of their own children. 

After passing through the defile, such as survived came 
on a high tableland, where snow was faUing in great flakes, 
and rendering the road almost impassable for the great 
mass of the poor creatures born in the tropics. That night 
a cold biting wind swept over the lofty bare surface of the 
mountain, rendering it almost certain death to sit down in 
the snow, however weary. They had only four tents. One 
was given to the sick General ; two to the English women 
and children ; one to the sick. That night Akbar Khan sent 
in a proposition that he should be intrusted with the women 
and children, promising to keep them a day's march in 
the rear of the army, and in pefect safety. After consider- 
erable negotiation, the married officers were allowed to 
accompany their wives, and soon after the unhappy band 
were placed in the hands of the murderer of Macnaughten, 
the husband of one of their number. 

Here is Lieutenant Eyre's account of the delivery of the 
women and children into the hands of Akbar : — 



1 82 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" It was now the third day, January 9, 1842 ; and scarcely one 
of the ladies had tasted a meal since leaving Cabul. Some had 
infants a few days old at their breasts, and were unable to stand 
without assistance ; some were in a condition which under ordi- 
nary circumstances would have admitted of no exertion. Yet 
these helpless women, with their young families, had already 
been obliged to rough it on the backs of camels and on the 
tops of the \i2igg2,gt-zaboos J those who had a horse to ride, or 
were capable of sitting on one, were considered fortunate. ... 
The offer of Mohammed Akbar Khan seemed their only chance 
of preservation ; yet it was a matter of serious consideration 
whether they were not rushing into the very jaws of death by 
placing themselves at the mercy of a man who had so lately 
imbued his hands in the blood of the British envoy, whom he 
had lured to destruction by similar professions of peace and 
good-will. . . . On the night of the eighth, Captain Sturt, hus- 
band of the daughter of Sir Robert and Lady Sale, died of his 
wounds, and a grave had been hollowed out for him in the snow 
of the frozen mountain. Overwhelmed with their sorrow, Mrs. 
Sturt and Lady Sale heard almost with indifference that they 
were to be handed over to the Afghan commander." 

"There was but faint hope," says Lady Sale, " of our ever 
getting to Jellalabad, and we followed the stream ; all I person- 
ally know of the affair is that I was told we were all to go, that 
we must mount immediately, and be off." 

The following day was spent by the forlorn party in a 
small hill fort, where they found Pottinger, George St. 
Patrick Lawrence, and Captain Colin McKenzie, who had 
been surrendered as hostages to the enemy. Rude and 
rough as were the accommodations and the fare, the small 
dark hovels in which they lodged were welcomed in ex- 
change for the terrible snowy mountain passes. They cared 
little for dense smoke, since it secured them the blaze of a 
wood fire. Here Akbar Khan sought an interview with 
Lady Macnaughten, and expressed regret for her husband's 
death, saying that if he could restore him to life he would 
give his hand. This was not probably hypocrisy. The deed 
had been done in a moment of rage, and he probably saw 
and repented his blunder. 

But to return to the Khyber Pass and those there endur- 
ing miseries of cold, fatigue, and hunger. The European 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 83 

soldiers were now the only efficient troops left. The 
Sepoys, unaccustomed to such a climate, had sunk under 
its horrors. " Hope," said Lieutenant Eyre, " seemed to 
have died in every breast. The wildness of terror was 
exhibited in every countenance." 

The end was now approaching. In a narrow gorge as 
the road passed between two hills the army was attacked 
by a strong body of Afghans, who captured the army chest 
and such baggage as had been preserved. Only two hun- 
dred and seventy men, all Europeans, with a small field- 
piece, forced their way through. Akbar proposed to them 
to surrender. They refused indignantly, and struggled on. 

There were camp-followers, however, who still pushed 
onward, and impeded the speed of the little party of English 
soldiers. That night these men tried to escape under a 
brilliant moon, but had to move so slowly that the enemy 
was upon them before morning. They had marched thirty 
hours when they found shelter under a ruined wall. 

Here Akbar again attempted negotiation, and demanded 
General Elphinstone, General Skelton, and Captain John- 
stone as hostages for the surrender of Jellalabad, which was 
held by Sir Robert Sale. This was not agreed to, but the 
officers named went to Akbar's headquarters to arrange 
terms, when they were seized as prisoners. There now 
remained but twenty fighting men, who resumed their march 
at nightfall, being within twenty-four hours of Jellalabad. 
One of the officers had the colors of his regiment fastened 
round his body. By midday nearly every man had been 
wounded. Twelve officers and a few cavalrymen, all bleed- 
ing, rode ahead of the troop, and six of them dropped from 
their horses before reaching the last village that separated 
them from Jellalabad. The remainder were treacherously 
assailed there while eating some food which they thought 
had been given them in compassion. Two were slain where 
they sat ; the others reached their horses and escaped. All 
perished, however, except one man, Dr. Brydon, before 
reaching Jellalabad. Worn out and wounded, he had 
Struggled on upon his jaded pony till the walls of the 



1 84 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

fort appeared in sight. He was espied alone upon the 
plain, and a party was sent out to bring him in, — the sole 
survivor (not a captive) of the forty-five hundred men and 
twelve thousand camp-followers who had quitted the canton- 
ments of Cabul barely a week before. 

Sir Robert Sale refused to surrender the fortress of Jella- 
labad, though Akbar professed to consider Generals Elphin- 
stone and Skelton as hostages. He said that Akbar had 
done nothing to protect the retreating British army, and 
General Nott, at Candahar, said the same. 

Nothing I could say would give an idea of the feeling 
excited in England when, many months after these events, 
the news came. The English ministry had been changed. 
Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington were in power, 
and Lord EUenborough had already been sent out to super- 
sede Lord Auckland as Governor-General of India. Lord 
EUenborough received the news when his vessel reached 
Madras. He was a man of tremendous energy, and of such 
vanity and eccentricity that by many he was thought partially 
insane. How he and the ministry of Sir Robert Peel re- 
paired the errors of Lords Palmerston and Auckland, and 
of the unhappy General Elphinstone, who lay dying in the 
tents of Akbar Khan, may be told presently ; meantime we 
will go back to the captive women and children. 

Lady Sale, wife of Sir Robert Sale, has given us the record 
of their experiences, and also Captain Johnstone and Lieu- 
tenant Eyre. 

The day after Lady Macnaughten had had her painful 
interview with Akbar Khan, the ladies proceeded on their 
journey, guiding their horses among heaps of corpses lying 
naked in the pass, and sickened by the smell of blood. 
Their destination was a small fort in the hills, where they 
were received with kindness, and another European officer 
was added to their party. Subsequently an army surgeon 
joined them, to their great relief, and a day or two after 
General Elphinstone and the two other officers, who had 
surrendered, as we have seen, when small chance of 
escaping alive out of the pass remained to them. 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 85 

Strange to say, the Afghan chiefs were at all times kind, 
and sometimes even chivalrous, in their attentions to their 
prisoners. Kindness, too, was shown them more than once 
by inferiors, who remembered former kindness received 
from Englishmen. But, on the other hand, no mercy was 
shown to the wretched Sepoy troops or to the camp-fol- 
lowers. These could not be made valuable as captives, and 
the men, now without officers, naked, benumbed, and utterly 
defenceless, wandered among the mountains in small par- 
ties till they died, either by the knives of their enemies or 
of cold and hunger. 

The English prisoners all through their captivity respected 
Sunday. They had picked up a pocket-bible and prayer- 
book in the pass, and one of the gentlemen read the ser- 
vice to the rest every Sunday morning. They observed that 
nothing seemed so favorably to impress the Mohammedans 
around them as any evidence of piety. They were also 
treated, it appeared to them, with more consideration and 
respect on Sunday than on other days. 

Wearily they journeyed on, not knowing where they were 
being taken, — sometimes hoping it might be to Jellala- 
bad, to be exchanged for Dost Mohammed and his harem ; 
sometimes fearing that they might be carried off into the 
wilds of Turkestan or Bokhara. 

With the exception of Lady Macnaughten and Mrs. Tre- 
vor, the ladies had lost all their baggage. Many had little 
children dependent on their care, who all had to march 
day by day on the backs of camels or on horseback, till 
they found an inhospitable resting-place on the other side 
of the mountains, in a miserable little fort known as Fort 
Baderabad, which had been built by a relative of Akbar 
Khan as a refuge in time of need for his own women. Here 
they lived six months, and were treated with kindness. 
There were nine ladies, twenty gentlemen, thirteen chil- 
dren, seventeen European soldiers, two soldiers' wives, and 
a child belonging to one of them. 

Their jailer was Mirza Bahoo-ud-Deen Khan. The Mirza 
was not a cruel man ; but it was impossible for wild Afghans 



1 86 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of the hills to understand what were absolute necessaries of 
life to English ladies and their little children. They suffered 
much in that lonely fort, though there were times even 
there when the children and young officers enjoyed them- 
selves ; and we read of merry games, — of snowballing and 
blind-man's-buff. They had also two old packs of cards, 
which were a great resource to many of them. 

From time to time a little news would reach them, — 
guessed at rather than communicated, read, as they would 
fancy, in the faces of their guards. 

At one time there occurred an earthquake which shook 
down the defences of Jellalabad, and almost brought the 
old fort where they were imprisoned about their ears. No 
one was seriously hurt, but nearly one hundred shocks 
followed. In the midst of the excitement that they caused, 
General Elphinstone died. He had been suffering both 
from gout and asthma, and a sense of his own terrible 
errors and shortcomings could not but prey upon his 
mind. Besides this he was a kindly old man, deeply moved 
by the sight of the sufferings around him. They read the 
burial service reverently over him, and buried him in a 
lonely grave among the hills. 

By degrees rumors reached the captives of the advance 
of the British forces as far as Jellalabad. Their guards be- 
came anxious and excited. The Mirza requested a certifi- 
cate from the captives to the effect that he had treated them 
with kindness. " We gladly complied with his wishes," said 
Sir George Lawrence, " as he had deserved well of us all. 
He is an intelligent man, without the overweening conceit 
of his countrymen ; and, knowing well that the destruction 
of our army would one day be avenged, he thought it would 
be a prudent measure to provide himself with a document 
that might in that case be of use." " 

The Mirza was alive a few years since, and the precious 
document, with its faded ink, has been, as he foresaw, of 
immense use to him. In his old age, when he was exiled 
from Cabul, it procured him a comfortable pension from 
the British Government. He had had the paper photo- 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 8/ 

graphed, and kept it carefully, surrounded with extracts from 
printed books and reports concerning him. He was a 
favorite with Dost Mohammed, whose dangers he had shared 
in Bokhara, and had always been accounted a friend to Eng- 
lishmen, As he grew old, his memory of the events of the 
imprisonment grew somewhat clouded ; but three things 
stood out vividly in his remembrance, — the earthquake, the 
birth of three little European babies, and the wonderful 
treasures contained in Lady Macnaughten's boxes ; out of 
which, by advice of some of the officers, she presented him 
two shawls. 

At last news came of the defeat of Akbar Khan. " Then 
the captives were hurried away again, they knew not whither, 
through ever ascending mountain-passes, under a scorching 
sun." They were being carried off to the wild, rugged 
regions of the Indian Caucasus. They were bestowed in a 
miserable fort named Barmecan. They were now under the 
charge of a man named Mohammed Akbar, — one of Akbar 
Khan's soldiers of fortune. He had for some time begun to 
suspect that things were wellnigh hopeless with his master. 
He was induced, by gradual and very cautious approaches, 
to enter into negotiations with the prisoners for their release. 
The English officers signed an agreement with him to pay 
him twenty thousand rupees, and secure him a pension of 
one thousand rupees a month, together with the protection 
of the British Government, provided he would escort them 
all in safety within the lines of the British army. This 
agreement did not prevent Mohammed Akbar from helping 
himself out of Lady Macnaughten's trunks to her valuable 
shawls and jewels. 

He, however, set forward with his prisoners on their way to 
the camp of General Pollock, on September ii, 1842, after 
eight months of captivity. Meantime Pollock had despatched 
a party of Kuzilbashes (native irregular cavalry), with orders 
to pursue the party of captives to the hills, and to recover 
them. If all came back in safety, each man was to receive 
four months' extra pay. They were commanded by Sir 
Robert Sale, and pushed on rapidly on the trail of the cap- 



1 88 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tives. Suddenly, as they ascended the hills, they came upon 
a huge lone pillar, which they found to have been erected 
by Alexander the Great to commemorate his feat of having 
crossed those mountains. 

At midday on the 17th of September, 1842, as the httle 
party of captives stopped for food and rest, they were 
alarmed by seeing horsemen appear on the crest of a neigh- 
boring hill. They were evidently native horsemen; and 
the instantaneous thought of the English was that they 
were the soldiers of Akbar Khan, sent to massacre all of 
them, or at best to hurry them beyond reach of their 
own countrymen. In the midst of their terror they espied 
an English officer riding to the front and waving a white 
handkerchief. It was Sir Robert Sale, the hero of Jellala- 
bad. " Our joy," says one of the rescued prisoners, " was 
too great, too overpowering for tongue to utter." 

On the ist of October all the party had reached Peshawar. 
Lady Sale, Captain Johnstone, and Lieutenant Eyre each 
told the narrative of their captivity in very interesting vol- 
umes ; and while the Duke of Wellington highly praised the 
latter. Lady Sale's Journal, in 1843, was in every English- 
man's hands. 

" When rumors of the perils of the army at Cabul reached 
Calcutta, in January, 1842, there was not a European whose 
heart did not beat and whose pulse did not tremble when he 
opened the letters brought him from the frontier. No one who 
dwelt in any part of India," says Sir J. W. Kaye, who wrote 
a history of this campaign, "during the early days of 1842, 
will ever forget the eagerness and fear with which questions 
were asked and answered, opinions interchanged, rumors and 
probabilities weighed, and how, as the tragedy deepened in 
solemnity, even the most timid and despondent felt that the 
ascertained reality far exceeded the miseries and horrors of 
their imagination." 

The nearest post to the Afghan frontier was the town and 
fortress of Peshawar. To Peshawar the agreement signed 
by General Elphinstone with Akbar Khan bound the garri- 
son of the Afghan fortress of Jellalabad to retire. That 
fortress was held by Sir Robert Sale with twenty-five hun- 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 89 

dred men, of whom eight hundred and thirty-six were Sepoys. 
On receiving Akbar Khan's summons to surrender, after 
having ascertained that he had wholly failed to protect the 
retreating English army, Sir Robert refused to be bound 
by an agreement that the Afghan leader had broken, and 
resolved to hold out against the whole power of the Afghan 
tribes, though he had but seventy days' provisions for his 
men, and twenty-five for their horses. In this determina- 
tion he had been strengthened by a letter that was trans- 
mitted him from Lady Sale, urging him never for one 
moment to take into consideration her position, or that of 
their daughter, Mrs. Sturt, when the honor of their country 
was concerned. 

On the 19th of February, the same earthquake that shook 
down the walls of the hill fort in which the captives were 
confined destroyed also the defences of Jellalabad. There 
were breaches that a troop could have marched through, 
four abreast. In a few days, by incredible exertions on 
the part both of Europeans and Asiatics, the damage was 
repaired, and the fort was stronger than before. 

Lord Auckland, meantime, was in a state of terrible doubt 
and indecision. His party had gone out of power, and he 
was waiting the arrival of Lord Ellenborough, the new 
Governor- General. He could not guess what the policy of 
the new Indian administration, under the direction of the 
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, might prove. In 
the uncertainty, he ordered all available troops to concen- 
trate at Peshawar. But Scinde and every other Indian 
power was restless and uneasy, — all ready to take advan- 
tage of the disasters that had befallen the English army. 
Lord Ellenborough, on taking the reins of government, 
decided that his true policy would be to withdraw the 
English troops wholly from Afghanistan ; to proclaim a 
change of policy which should make the Indus the boundary 
of British ambition in Northwestern India ; to attempt no 
further military operations, except such as might be neces- 
sary to withdraw the garrisons in safety from Jellalabad and 
Candahar, and to abandon Afghanistan to the Afghans. 



I90 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

He fitted out two expeditions, one for the relief of Jella- 
labad, one to relieve Candahar. The Candahar expedition 
failed ; but General Nott extricated himself and his garri- 
son, without succor, by his own skill and the bravery of his 
tried soldiers. 

At Jellalabad the relieving force came in sight from the 
fortress in the middle of March. On April i the garrison 
made a sortie. A complete victory was gained ; two stand- 
ards that had been taken in the terrible disasters of the 
retreat were recovered, and four of the cannon. Pollock, 
victorious at Jellalabad, and Nott at Candahar, were, above 
all things, anxious to be allowed to push on to Cabul and 
take vengeance for the massacre. Lord EUenborough for 
a long time refused to sanction any forward march into the 
territory of Afghanistan, and consented at last only on con- 
dition that Nott and Pollock would fully understand two 
things : First, that they were acting on their own respon- 
sibihty ; secondly, that if repulsed they could expect no 
army to come to their aid. 

With this understanding, Pollock pushed on. He had 
eight thousand men under his command, and they forced 
the first part of the long pass early in August. Soon all 
the way the troops trod on the whitened bones of men, 
horses, and camels that had perished the previous winter. 
The pass was in general about forty yards in width ; but in 
many places it narrowed to ten feet, and in one place to 
six feet, so that the fall of a baggage-horse would there 
have obstructed a whole army. 

Not long after the British left Cabul, Shah Soojah had 
been assassinated. His body, stripped of its royal robes 
and jewels, was flung into a ditch. Prince Timour was 
never even thought of as his successor, but for a while the 
crown was placed on the head of Shah Soojah's second son, 
Fetteh Jung. 

The English army (Pollock's and Nott's forces combined) 
entered Cabul on the i6th of September, 1842, a few days 
before the recovery of the captives by the horsemen sent 
after them to the hills. It was determined utterly to 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. I9I 

destroy the large and beautiful Bazaar of Cabul before 
evacuating the city. The architecture of this place was 
extraordinarily beautiful, and it had been the pride of the 
Afghans from generation to generation ; but there the 
bodies of Macnaughten and Burnes had been exposed to 
the contumely of Mohammedan fanatics. It was with great 
difficulty that it was laid waste, and its columns and arches 
destroyed. Pollock and Nott seem to have acted up to 
Phil Sheridan's maxim, that " you cannot make war without 
soiling white kid gloves ; " and there were many charges of 
needless cruelty and devastation made against them after- 
wards in the English papers. But by Lord Ellenborough's 
express orders, if the expedition proved successful it was to 
signalize its triumph by bringing back to India the gates of 
the idol temple at Somnauth. These gates had been cap- 
tured eight hundred years before by a Mohammedan prince 
who invaded India. He brought them to Afghanistan (as 
they were very handsome) to adorn the tomb of some 
Mohammedan saint near Ghuznee. The gates were taken 
from the tomb of the saint and lugged with great difficulty 
over the mountains, — the proceeding affording small grati- 
fication to the Mohammedan native soldiers in the English 
army, who greatly outnumbered the Hindoos. However, 
Lord Ellenborough, who loved to write bulletins in the 
style of Napoleon, had the satisfaction of putting forth two 
grandiloquent proclamations which the Duke of Wellington 
had hard work in trying to defend before Parliament and 
the country. In private, the Duke spoke very freely of the 
eccentricities of the Governor-General. 

"I told the Duke," says Greville, "that a friend of mine 
had seen a letter from Ellenborough, in which he gave an 
account of a review he was going to have, when he meant 
to arrange the army in the form of a star, with the artillery 
at the point of each ray, and a throne for himself in the 
centre. 'And he ought to sit upon it in a strait-waist- 
coat ! ' grimly replied the Duke of Wellington." 

The very day that the army returned in triumph to 
Peshawar, news was received of another English triumph. 



192 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

— the submission of the Chinese at the close of the well- 
fought but far-from-creditable Opium War. England, 
however, had other causes of quarrel with the Chinese 
Government, which up to time of this war had persisted in 
treating all civilized nations as outside barbarians, unworthy 
of consideration from the Sons of Heaven. 

I remember when five wagon-loads of silver money, 
each drawn by four horses and escorted by a detachment 
of the Sixtieth Regiment, passed through the streets of 
London on their way to the Mint. It was the war indem- 
nity, of four and a half millions of pounds sterling, paid 
by the Chinese Government. 

English soldiers and sailors behaved most gallantly in 
this war ; but its immediate cause was the refusal of the 
Chinese Government to permit opium to be imported, 
declaring that it ruined the health and morals of the 
Chinese people. Opium cannot be raised in China ; it is 
raised in India, and the Government has the monopoly of 
the opium factories. The poppies are grown by the small 
cultivators, who always find a market for them at a fixed 
rate in Government factories. Lord Palmerston professed 
to think that the moral ground taken by the Chinese 
government was a pretext for destroying British com- 
merce with China, and injuring the revenues of the English 
Government. The quarrel went on some time before the 
disputants had recourse to arms. The war on the part of 
the English was a succession of cheap victories. The 
Chinese fought bravely, but their guns were as old as the 
days of Queen Elizabeth. At last they asked for peace on 
any terms. The English demanded that Hong-Kong, a 
small island, should be ceded to them, and five ports of 
entry be assigned them. Traffic was to be opened to all 
foreigners, and the EngUsh were to treat with the Chinese 
on equal terms. This, with the indemnity exacted, pro- 
cured peace. But Justin McCarthy has remarked, when 
speaking on this subject, '•' As children say the snow brings 
more snow, so did this war with China bring on others." 

When Lady Sale and her fellow-captives got back safely 




GENERAL SIR HENRY HAVELOCK. 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 193 

to Hindoostan, Dost Mohammed was released from his 
captivity. Lord EUenborough in a proclamation declared 
that " to force a sovereign on a reluctant people was as 
inconsistent with the policy as it was with the principles of 
the British Government," and before long Dost Mohammed 
was restored to his throne. He continued to be a good 
friend to the English. He had seen their power, and 
experienced their humanity ; and he made a treaty with 
the Indian Government by which he bound himself to give 
no ear to the intrigues of any other foreign Power. 

It seems strange that these terrible experiences of 1842 
should have been in part repeated, nearly a quarter of a 
century later, on the same ground, and partly from the same 
causes; for the terrible massacres of 1S41 and 1842 were 
not the only massacres of Cabul. 

The Duke of Wellington ascribed the disaster, whose 
history I have just narrated, " to the attempt to make war 
on a military peace establishment ; making war without a 
safe base of operations ; carrying the native army out of 
India into a strange and cold climate ; giving undue power 
to political agents ; invading a poor country, whose resources 
were unequal to supplying an army's wants ; want of fore- 
thought and over-confidence in the Afghans on the part of 
Sir William Macnaughten, placing the magazines, and even 
the treasure, in indefensible places ; and great military 
neglect and mismanagement after the outbreak." But the 
most fatal error was in the policy which induced the 
English Government to incur real perils to avoid uncertain 
dangers, and its endeavoring, in the words of Lord Ellen- 
borough's proclamation, "to force a sovereign on a reluctant 
people." 

In the advance under General Pollock a young lieu- 
tenant, afterwards General Sir Henry Havelock (the Stone- 
wall Jackson of the English army), won his first honors. 

As to the gates of Somnauth, which the soldiers trans- 
ported through the Khyber Pass to the plains of Hindoo- 
stan, — to the Mohammedans the act was impious ; to the 
Hindoos the restoration was ridiculous : for the temple of 

13 



194 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Somnauth was in ruins, and the ground it had covered was 
owned by Mohammedans. 

To complete the absurdity, the gates proved not to be 
genuine relics after all ! 

There are two episodes connected with this disastrous 
narrative which I should like to tell before concluding the 
subject. One is the story of Captain Colin McKenzie's 
ride, made on parole to Jellalabad, on a mission connected 
with the liberation of the prisoners ; the other, the sad fate 
of Captains Stoddart and Conelly, in the hands of the tyrant 
of Bokhara. 

Captain McKenzie was one of Akbar's hostages. After 
the repulse of that leader from the walls of Jellalabad, 
great apprehension prevailed among the prisoners in their 
hill fort lest they should be massacred for revenge. At 
that time General Elphinstone lay desperately ill. "We 
had no medicine left," says Captain McKenzie. " I had 
a lump of opium in my pocket, which seemed to do 
him some good ; but at last it was gone, and we had no 
more." When the General died, Akbar was a good deal 
affected, regretting that he had not sent him where he 
could obtain medical aid ; and he resolved to take the 
advice of Major Pottinger, and send an oificer on par- 
ole to treat with General Pollock for the release of the 
prisoners. 

Captain McKenzie was pitched upon, under the idea that 
he had some sort of ecclesiastical character, and might be 
the more likely to return ; but few of the Afghan chiefs 
expected he would. Akbar, however, trusted him. He 
only once asked him if he intended to return, and received 
for answer, "Are you the son of an Ameer, and ask me, 
an English gentleman, if I shall keep my word?" All 
McKenzie's fellow-prisoners, except Pottinger, whose spirit 
never quailed, looked on him as devoted to almost certain 
destruction. McKenzie rode Lady Sale's horse, with an 
Afghan saddle. He was placed under the charge of a noted 
robber, Buttee, the thief, — a sort of Rob Roy in the High- 
lands of Afghanistan. The party consisted of McKenzie, 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 95 

two horsemen of Akbar's, Buttee and three of his men, the 
four last on foot. 

" Our road," says the Captain, " lay for some distance up the 
bed of a mountain torrent which reached every now and then 
the breasts of our horses, over huge bowlders of stone which 
made it all but impassable, until we reached a small cascade, up 
which it was impossible to go. The horsemen began to abuse 
Buttee for bringing them on such a road ; he declared it was a 
very good road, and told me to dismount and follow him. We 
went up a goat-path, where I cannot sufficiently wonder at the 
horses having been able to follow. The exertion was tremen- 
dous. As soon as I found myself alone with Buttee, and dis- 
covered he could speak Persian, I began to make friends with 
him. He abused the horsemen for a couple of milksops. He 
himself was the finest specimen of a wiry athletic mountaineer I 
ever saw. He was nothing but bone and muscle, about thirty 
years old, and never appeared the least fatigued or out of breath 
in surmounting hills to which Ben Lomond is a joke. In toiling 
up he put his matchlock behind his back, with the ends resting 
on the inside of his elbows, so that he had no help from his arms, 
and often he was singing a Pushta war-song. At length we 
worked our way up to the snow, which, owing to its extreme 
slipperiness, was more dangerous still. In spite of the cold, the 
perspiration rolled off of us. Even the Afghan horsemen said 
they had never seen such a road. Here and there we saw some 
little mountain fastness perched on some bad eminence, standing 
in strong relief against the sky, and which we passed with as little 
ado as might be. At the top of this stupendous pass we came 
upon the most magnificent cedars and pines I ever saw, of from 
eighteen to twenty feet in growth. At the summit of the pass is 
a high pole, with a white flag on top, in passing which every 
Mohammedan stroked his beard and uttered a prayer. Our 
route, after descending the mountain, lay not far from the pass, 
where, still untouched by decay, lay the bodies of many of 
my dear and faithful comrades, and where some three months 
previously I had witnessed the deep despair of poor General 
Elphinstone, when he and his unhappy subordinate, Colonel 
Skelton, were entrapped by their treacherous enemy. In the 
uncertainty that enveloped all things in the future, I could only 
hft up my heart for comfort, support, and direction to Him 
whose arm is never shortened to help and save those who put 
their trust in Him. 

" Soon, however, my time for meditation was cut short ; I was 



196 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

summoned to the front, and we moved on rapidly, Buttee's 
earnest desire being that we should move on fast, as we were 
passing through the region of certain tribes, from whose fury, he 
frankly admitted, he would be unable, if I was discovered, to 
protect me. Our road became rougher at every step, lying 
always through deep ravines, and mostly through the rough beds 
of watercourses. 

" Day beginning to dawn, Buttee mounted my horse, making 
me ride behind him, with ray hands and face enveloped in 
the folds of my turban and sheepskin cloak, leaving my eyes 
scarcely as visible as those of the roughest Skye terrier. Of 
course I was smothered, but there was no help for it, for it was 
necessary I should pass for a small Chief of Peshawar, who, be- 
ing sick, was being sent by Akbar under Buttee's care to his home. 
Unable to help myself, or even to hold on to the rider before me, 
while the old horse, unaccustomed to carry double, kicked like 
fury, every jolt on the sharp ridge of the horse's backbone made 
me feel like the man in the Scotch song ' who rode upon a razor.' 
En route we passed several Ghiljzees, whose inquiries concerning 
tne Buttee evaded by lying ; but eluding their dangerous curios- 
ity was a great grief to me, as, in addition to the intolerable pain 
I was enduring, it was necessary to muffle up every particle of 
my white skin, the least appearance of which would have been 
my death-warrant ; and keeping my wide Afghan trousers from 
riding up to my knees was next to impossible. Some five miles 
before we reached Chinghai, a fortress belonging to Sir Fraz 
Khan (Sir was not a title, but a name), to whom I was to be 
transferred, as we tried to slip by a fortress belonging to a small 
chief who was so execrably diabolical as to be accounted a per- 
fect ogre, even by his own people, we were thrown into great 
consternation by being challenged, and obliged to stop. This 
danger, however, we escaped ; but before we were out of that 
chief's territory the horse that carried Buttee and myself fell, and 
I tumbled off into the midst of a crowd of ruffians who had 
rushed out at the cry of ' Strangers ! ' Worn out with pain and 
fatigue, and despairing of escape, I was on the point of dropping 
my disguise and meeting my fate with as much fortitude as I 
could muster under such appalling circumstances ; but it was only 
a passing temptation. By God's blessing, I did not lose my 
presence of mind. I kept my sheepskin cloak wrapped closely 
round me, concealing my face, and staggered forward like a 
man worn down by sickness. One of Buttee's followers took 
the hint, and caught me by the arm as if to assist me, reviling the 
luckless horse which had played such a trick on so good a man." 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 97 

This was the most terrible moment in this dreadful jour- 
ney. The fortress of Sir Fraz Khan was reached. Buttee 
sought an interview with the chief, who consented to receive 
and forward the Enghshman, who, after terrible sufferings 
from cramp and thirst and heat, found himself in the 
family burying-ground, under the shade of trees beside the 
murmuring waters of a fountain, where he lay, enjoying, he 
says, " the transition from a real Papistical Purgatory to a 
Mohammedan Paradise." 

" In the evening Buttee took an affectionate leave of me," 
says the Captain, " evidently glad to be rid of so unsatisfactory 
a charge ; for although I think the peculiar notions of his race 
regarding the point of honor would have led him to die in my 
defence, he felt that the life of a true believer would have been, in 
that case, unworthily wasted. Honest Buttee (if I may poetically 
call him so) was a man of extraordinary intelligence, and, like 
most of his countrymen, who are distinguished for vigor of intel- 
lect, personally liked Europeans. Myguides werenow twomen of 
Sir Fraz Khan's own clan, one of whom, Akhoonzadeh, had been 
chosen for his known craft and reputed sanctity, and botli for 
their intimate connection with the greatest rascals in the coun- 
try, especially those of the Black Tent Ghiljzees, several hordes 
of whom were said to lie on our route. These are the freest of 
the mountaineers, handsome and intelligent, and acknowledge 
no authority, human or divine. They live continually in their 
tents of coarse black wool, and their habits are purely pastoral, 
which signifies, in spite of poets and would-be philosophers, a 
state of incredible and unmitigated wickedness and immorality. 
Subsequently the body of General Elphinstone, sent down by 
Akbar to Jellalabad as a tardy act of courtesy, fell into their 
hands. They beat and maltreated the guard, and the body, after 
being dragged from the coffin and treated with indignities, was 
with difficulty rescued from their hands. Some time after, when 
I again met Buttee he exhibited me to his wondering companions, 
after telling them how I had fallen off the horse at Chinghai, and 
escaped the Black Tent Ghiljzees, as a wonderful instance of the 
mercy of God. To which they all replied by stroking their 
beards and replying, ' That was indeed a great miracle ! ' 

" The heat of the plain we crossed before reaching General 
Pollock's camp, before Jellalabad, was 135° in the shade. It 
completely stupefied me, and by the time we reached the outly- 
ing picket, I was, as we Scotch say, sair forfoiighien. They 



198 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

would not believe I was a European, so black and haggard 
had I become, till I laughed, when the old native officer at once 
recognized the sahib. The news of my arrival soon spread 
through the camp, and I shall ever remember with much pleas- 
ure the hearty sympathy and genuine kindness manifested by 
every officer and soldier to the best of his ability." 

The reply that he carried back to Akbar not proving 
satisfactory, he was sent again to Jellalabad, with letters 
from Akbar and Major Pottinger, seven hours after his 
arrival. 

His second journey was much less hazardous than the 
first, as the Afghans, being aware of his having returned 
voluntarily, treated him with respect and consideration. 
But the excessive fatigue, coupled with previous hardships 
and acute mental suffering, caused by the dreadful scenes 
of the massacre, brought on an attack of typhus fever in its 
most virulent form. Under this he nearly sank, and the 
task of undertaking the journey for the third and last time 
was confided to another officer. 

A few words must sufifice to tell the sad story of Captains 
Stoddart and Conolly. The former, who in the year 1839 
had been sent on a diplomatic mission to Persia, was after- 
wards ordered to the court of the Ameer of Bokhara. This 
potentate received him favorably at first, but afterwards, 
becoming suspicious of the English designs, he treated him 
with marked indignity, and threw him into prison. Two 
years later. Captain Conolly proceeded to Bokhara to 
attempt his release, but could only succeed in sharing his 
sufferings. The exiled Sirdar of Herat had likewise been 
imprisoned by the Ameer. He succeeded in effecting his 
escape as a melon-seller, and offered to procure a similar 
disguise for Captain Conolly ; but the offer was refused, the 
poor fellow feeling confident that he would soon be set free 
by the intervention of the English Government. Alas ! 
the Ameer of Bokhara had written, with his own hand, a 
letter to the Queen of England, and the answer returned 
was only written by the English Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs. Exasperated by what he considered an insult, the 



THE CABUL MASSACRE. 1 99 

Ameer showed his wrath in ill-usage of the captives. He 
accused them of being spies, and of giving help to his 
enemies. English experience in far-off mountain regions 
had been coo recent and too disastrous to make the Indian 
Government willing to follow up their remonstrances by 
force of arms. Besides, the authorities believed, or affected 
to believe, that the unfortunate gentlemen had exceeded 
their instructions. 

Dr. Joseph Wolff, the celebrated Jewish traveller and 
Christian missionary, made his way, however, to Bokhara, 
under the auspices of some English friends, in the hope of 
saving the unhappy captives ; but he only reached Bokhara 
to hear that they had already been put to death. The 
moment and the actual manner of their death cannot be 
known with certainty, but there is little doubt that both 
were executed the same day, by order of the Ameer. The 
journals of Conolly were recovered, kept up to an ad- 
vanced period of his captivity, and they relieve, so far, 
our melancholy feeUngs at the fate that so early befell these 
two brave officers, by showing us that the horrors of their 
captivity were so great that they may have welcomed the 
swift stroke of the executioner. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TEN YEARS, 184I-185I. 

TX THEN the retirement of Lord Melbourne, in 1841, 
' * took place, a Tory ministry came into power, 
headed by the Duke of Wellington (who, however, declined 
an office) and Sir Robert Peel, The Queen had from her 
earliest years placed great confidence in the Duke of Wel- 
lington, the unofficial adviser of the royal family (and 
indeed of every other person privileged to ask counsel of 
him in matters of domestic difficulty) . She had a personal 
prejudice against Sir Robert Peel ; but that soon yielded 
to the high regard and esteem he early acquired from her 
husband, and nothing could have been more harmonious 
than the court and the cabinet up to the time of Sir 
Robert's resignation, in 1846. The cabinet was com- 
posed of very strong men. Some of its junior members 
have since been among England's most distinguished 
statesmen. 

At that time England was much agitated about the 
new Poor Law. A few words of explanation may tell 
what the Poor Laws of England were. 

In England, after the suppression of the monasteries, in 
the middle of the sixteenth century, the poor who had 
been fed around the convent gates had no resource but 
wandering from parish to parish to get work, thieving or 
begging. The case became so bad that something more 
than punishment was needed ; and one of Queen Eliza- 
beth's Parliaments passed a Poor Law, by which every 
parish was obliged to assess itself for the support of its 
poor. This system worked pretty well till after the great 
Napoleonic wars, when it was found that in some parishes 



TEN YEARS, — 1SU-1S51. 201 

the farmers themselves, burdened by excessive rates, had 
become paupers. When child-labor was called for in the 
factories, pauper children in large cities were shipped off 
by the barge-load to labor and die in places where their 
labor was contracted for ; and many farmers paid their 
laborers starvation wages, but made it up by obtaining 
for their families outdoor parish relief. All this and much 
more was represented to Parhament in 1834 ; and the 
New Poor Law Bill was passed, appointing Poor Law 
Commissioners. Outdoor relief was not to be given ; but 
for every four, five, or more parishes, a great ugly work- 
house was to be built, and any one who applied for relief 
or support was to be forced to go into the " Union " 
which held the paupers of the parish to which he belonged. 

The almshouses in England have nothing to do with 
workhouses, — they are the offspring of private charity : 
little houses given rent free, often with a yearly supply of 
fuel, to old persons of the class the benefactor has selected 
to live in them ; and before the Reformation, they were 
expected, in return, to pray for the peace of his soul. 

The Poor Law Commissioners in England soon found 
that to deny all outdoor relief entailed great hardship ; and 
the law has been practically so modified, in spite of the 
policy of making it as hard upon the poor as possible, that 
where one is put into the workhouse, hvo receive outdoor 
relief still. In 1883, the whole population of England and 
Wales was about 26,000,000, of whom nearly a million were 
paupers. The poor-rate levied was ;^i 5,000,000. One- 
third of this sum went to support the rural police, to 
repair highways, assist public improvements, etc ; the rest 
was appropriated to taking care of the poor, ^^i 0,000,000 
(^50,000,000) is a large sum when we consider the amount 
of private charity bestowed by all classes in England, and 
eliminate the number of pauper criminals supported in 
jails, besides those who endure their poverty in silent 
hopelessness. 

The most hateful feature of the New Poor Law was the 
forced separation of husband and wife, parents and chil- 



202 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

dren. It was wished to inspire an intense horror of the 
workhouse, and so cut off from the poor all temptation 
to become paupers. At first the operation of the law was 
very cruel ; and though since it has been greatly modified, 
it may in many instances be cruel still. 

Here is an account of the working of the Poor Law, 
drawn by no unfriendly hand. The scene is in a rural 
district, where an unusually large number of parishes were 
combined in one Union. The Poor Law Commissioners 
and Guardians of the Poor had held their meeting, and the 
relieving officer, with his list of names, sets out to dis- 
tribute a week's out-door relief to the expectant poor. 

" By the conditions of his appointment, he must have a 
horse and chaise. The contractor for bread is bound to 
deliver it at the house of the pauper. He must, therefore, 
provide man and horse, and they accompany the relieving 
officer. They arrive at the first hamlet on the route, and 
stop at a cottage door. 

" Round it and within, the destitute poor of the parish are 
assembled. Each receives his allowance of money or bread. 
But a group has collected round the door, whose names are 
not on the relief list. One woman tells the relieving officer 
that her husband is ill with fever, and her children are without 
food. He knows the family. He hastens down the lane and 
across the field, and enters the cottage. The man is really ill, 
and there are evident signs of destitution. A written order is 
given to the medical officer to attend the case, and necessary 
relief is given. The next man who approaches the officer, with 
an air of overbearing insolence or of fawning humility, is also 
an applicant. He is known at the village beer-shop, and by the 
farmer as a man who can work and will not. He is the last 
man employed in the parish. His hovel is visited ; it is a 
scene of squafid misery. What is to be done ? He may be 
relieved temporarily with bread, or admitted to the workhouse 
of the Union, or he is directed to attend the Board. The 
relieving officer then proceeds to his next station. Here a 
large supply of bread awaits him, for he is now in a populous 
parish. The poor of the parish are assembled at the church 
door, and the relief is given in the vestry room. Then he 
rides to the cottages of the sick and aged, and again continues 
his route. The laborer in the fields hails him, and tells of some 



TEN YEARS, — mi-lS51 203 

solitary person who is without medical aid. A boy sits on a 
stile waiting for him, to beg him to come and see his mother; 
the farmer's man, on the farmer's horse, is sent to bring his 
news of disease, destitution, and death. He completes his 
day's journey before the evening. To-morrow another route 
is taken. And thus he proceeds from day to day, and from 
month to month, through summers heat and winter's cold." 

The best part of the system is the certainty the poor 
have of good medical attendance ; its worst feature is the 
severing of domestic ties when families are forced to go 
into the workhouse, if they are people who retain some 
self-respect. An English laborer's wages range from nine 
shillings ($2.18) a week to fifteen shillings. To break 
down or to lose his work, if only for a week, is destitution. 

" If he applies in health and strength to the parish, there is 
no alternative ; he has to break up his home, and go into the 
Union. He passes into the men's hall, where he associates 
with the profligate, the tramp, and the jail-bird ; his wife is 
sent to the women's ward, where the worst class of women in 
the surrounding parishes are her associates. The children, 
possibly, are better off; for, though all brightness in their 
young lives is at an end, they are under school discipline." 

The Reform Bill having increased enormously the influ- 
ence of the great manufacturing class in the Reformed 
Parliament, by giving members to between twenty and 
thirty large manufacturing cities, a struggle ensued be- 
tween the inhabitants of the country and the population 
of large towns, — the industrials in factories, who wanted 
cheap bread, and the farmers, who wished their products 
to have protection. It was this Parliamentary agitation 
that succeeded that for Reform. During the early years 
of Queen Victoria, the subject was agitated with the utmost 
energy, though, at first, Mr. Villiers' annual motion on the 
subject was treated with contempt and even ridicule. But 
by 1840, documents, speeches, public meetings, and 
pamphlets, all under the superintendence of the Anti-Corn- 
Law League, led by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, had 



204 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

brought the subject prominently before Parliament and the 
country. The cause had also its poet, Ebenezer Elliott, 
who wrote " Corn Law Rhymes." 

In early times, it was against the law to export wheat 
from England. The wheat grown at home was kept at 
home for the support of the English population. In 
Charles II. 's time, an enormous duty was imposed on 
foreign grain, so great that it amounted to a prohibition. 

After the great Napoleonic wars were over, in 1815, 
England again endeavored to protect agricultural interests 
hy prohibiting the importation of foreign grain. It was 
made unlawful to bring foreign wheat into England until 
Enghsh wheat had reached famine prices ; that is, eighty 
shillings a quarter (about $2.50 a bushel). A great deal of 
popular disturbance succeeded the passage of this Act, 
which made bread very dear in England, and in 1828 
there was adopted a " sliding scale," — a curious commercial 
see-saw. When the price of wheat ^ was high, the duty 
became low ; when wheat was low, then the duty became 
high. It was said that to take off the duty on imported 
wheat would impoverish English landlords and bear hardly 
on the interests of those engaged in agriculture. Expe- 
rience seems to prove that it has done so. One effect has 
been that nearly all the village commons, where the poor, 
in my young days, used to pasture their cows, their don- 
keys, and their geese, in common, have been enclosed and 
brought under cultivation, while the rents of the land- 
owners have, in some parts, dwindled to one-fourth of their 
value twenty-five years ago. 

When Sir Robert Peel and his ministry came into power, 
the repeal of the Corn Laws was being agitated throughout 
England ; but it was not a popular measure with statesmen. 
Almost all candidates for seats in the House of Commons, 

1 In the speech of Englishmen, " corn " means " wheat." It is very 
hard for a person accustomed to English wa5's of speaking to accus- 
tom hinrjself to say, on arriving in the United States, " wheat-field," 
instead of " corn-field," — " waving wheat," instead of " waving 
corn." 



TEN YEARS, — ISJi-l-lSol. 205 

even Liberals, repudiated the idea of having anything to do 
with it. But Sir Robert Peel had always been in favor of a 
modification of the Corn Laws, and, as a manufacturer 
himself, was willing to go further in the cause than Lord 
John Russell (the son of a great landowner) would venture 
to do. In 1845, when it became certain that a famine was 
impending in Ireland, Sir Robert came boldly forward with 
a measure for Corn Law repeal, which may be said to 
have taken away the breath of his friends in Parliament 
and in the country. Of the scene that in the House of 
Commons followed his introduction of this bill I will speak 
hereafter ; it forms a striking episode in the history of 
Lord Beaconsfield (Mr. Disraeli). The bill advocated by 
the Government was passed by a majority of ninety-eight, 
the Irish members voting with Peel's party, and the meas- 
ure went up to the House of Lords, where it passed 
speedily. The prospect of an Irish famine had made a 
great change in public opinion ; Macaulay, for instance, 
was heart and soul for a bill he had been at pains to refuse 
to favor four years before. 

The howl of indignation against Peel the traitor — the 
betrayer — is now too strange to realize. I saw it, — or, 
rather, heard it, — and marvelled at its fury. It was 
worse than the excitement seventeen years before, when he 
abandoned what was then called the " Protestant " cause, 
in favor of Catholic Emancipation. The landed interest, 
however, which he deserted, had its revenge ; it coalesced 
with the Irish members. In less than a month after his 
triumph. Peel ceased to have a Parliamentary majority, 
and his ministry resigned. "On the day on which the 
falling minister announced the dissolution of his Govern- 
ment he received a despatch from Washington, announc- 
ing that the dispute concerning the boundary in Oregon 
between the British dominions and the United States had 
been satisfactorily settled." 

That dispute had been a warm one, and at one time 
seemed to threaten fratricidal war. 



206 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" Peel was never so popular or so respected as during the four 
years after his fall from power. He had no desire to return to 
office, and when he resigned he is said to have implored the 
Queen never again to require him to serve her as her minister. 
He wrote to Lord Hardinge a few days after his fall, ' I have 
every disposition to forgive my enemies for having conferred on 
me the blessing of a loss of power; ' and there is no doubt that 
the feeling was perfectly sincere." 

When his ministry had come into office, in 1841, it had 
inherited many difficulties. The foreign policy of Lord 
Palmerston had been left in confusion. British policy in 
Afghanistan had to be reversed, and England was involved 
in the imbroglio of the Eastern Question. Mehemet Ali, 
the Macedonian soldier of fortune, who had become ruler 
of Egypt by consent of his suzerain, the wicked, cruel, 
energetic Mahomet, last Sultan of the old school, was in 
rebellion. The Russian Emperor had marched an army to 
assist the Sultan. Ibrahim Pasha, Mehemet's brilliant son, 
was stopped after the battle of Konieh, in 1832, when pre- 
paring to march on Constantinople, by the intervention 
of the European Powers, and France and England were 
engaged in a diplomatic war, which threatened to become 
something worse, over the interests of the ruler of Egypt, 
whom France looked on as hex protege, and the interests of 
the Sultan, which England always systematically maintained. 
Lord Palmerston won the victory. The interests of Me- 
hemet were sacrificed to preserve the balance of power 
in Europe, and Ibrahim Pasha ^ was driven out of Syria, 
his expulsion being precipitated by the brilliant capture of 
his stronghold of St. Jean d'Acre by Admiral Sir Charles 
Napier. 

Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington also found 
themselves with another war in India upon their hands. 

1 Some years after, on entering a shop in Oxford Street, whence a 
carriage with a stout gentleman in it was jvist driving away, my mother 
and I were met by the proprietor with, " Oh ! ladies, I am sorry you 
did not come in a few moments sooner. That there gentleman as has 
just drove away was Abraham Parker." 



TEN YEARS, — mi-lS51. 20/ 

Generals Pollock and Nott, having punished the inhabit- 
ants of Cabul for their share in the atrocities of 1841, and 
the captive ladies and children being restored to their 
friends, Dost Mohammed returned to his own people, who 
received him joyfully ; and as long as he lived he was the 
fast friend of his old enemies, the English, who never 
again attempted to interfere with him. 

On both sides of the Indus towards its mouths lies the 
great and fertile country of Scinde. Northeast of Scinde 
lies the Punjaub, and between the Punjaub and British 
India lay, in 1840, the Uttle country of Gwalior. 

Now, to bring British India up to the mountains and the 
Indus, and to give a safe frontier to her peninsula, it was 
necessary she should own, or at least influence, Scinde and 
the Punjaub ; and to get at the Punjaub she had to have 
Gwalior. 

I am not concerned to defend the way the English Gov- 
ernment and the East India Company acted in this matter. 
Their policy was excellent ; their political morality can only 
offer "necessity, the tyrant's plea," in excuse. Had there 
been strong men at the head of the Government in Scinde 
or in the Punjaub, the Company and the Government might 
have made alliances with them which would have answered 
their purpose ; but there was no strong man, and no govern- 
ment worthy of the name, in either country, and a different 
line of pohcy was pursued. 

Scinde at that time was very much like what England 
might have been under the Normans if the feudal barons 
had had no king over them. There were the native inhab- 
itants, a downtrodden race ; the Ameers, who were exact 
counterparts of Norman barons or German Freiherren ; and 
their men-at-arms, the Belooches, whom they kept in their 
pay to oppress the people. 

The comparison between Ameers and Normans, Scindians 
and Saxons, extends even to their forest laws. The 
Ameers, like the barons, spent their time in hunting, or in 
the chase, and the banks of the Indus, in every way suitable 
for commercial purposes, were kept covered with jungle, 



208 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

that the lords — the Ameers — might there find good hunt- 
ing-grounds. When the EngUsh marched their army into 
Afghanistan to restore Shah Soojah, and, still more, when 
they marched another army to avenge the disasters of the 
first, they forced the reluctant Ameers of Scinde to grant a 
passage to their troops, and they insisted On a treaty which 
would let them send trading vessels up the Indus. " All is 
lost," said one of the Ameers, as he signed this treaty; 
" the English will soon have the river." Bit by bit the 
English encroached on the prerogatives of the Ameers, and 
more and more these proud barons hated and mistrusted 
them. Lord EUenborough, who had a natural taste for war, 
and real military foresight, determined to take advantage of 
any pretext that might offer for turning the Ameers into 
open enemies, and then defeating them. It was the old 
story of the wolf and the lamb, only the Ameers were by 
no means lambs, but fierce tiger-cubs. With a view to a 
possible war with these bold chiefs, Sir Charles Napier, the 
general, was sent to Scinde to take command of the English 
army, of which every regiment was Sepoy, except the 
Twenty-second Queen's Infantry. This regiment was com- 
posed mostly of Irishmen, who in this campaign performed 
prodigies of valor. 

The Napiers were a race endowed with brilliant qualities, 
but of uncertain tempers and many eccentricities. They 
were at once tender and vindictive, loving and fierce, faith- 
ful and capricious, great in great things, and in little ones 
so irritable and unreasonable as to be small. As a general 
of genius and resources, the Duke of Wellington considered 
Sir Charles Napier as second only to himself. 

One of the most brilliant episodes in Anglo-Indian his- 
tory relates how Sir Charles Napier pushed a Uttle party 
eight days' journey through a desert to the chief stronghold 
of one of the principal Ameers. 

" The wells on the way to it," says Alison, " were all dry, and 
water had to be carried on camels' backs. To this fortress in 
this dry and untrodden solitude, the Beloochee forces were 
reported by the scouts to have retired, to the number of 



TEN YEARS, — mi-1851. 209 

twenty thousand men ; and there, surrounded by the desert, 
and protected by its hardships, were prepared to make a stand. 
The march was difficult beyond description. The camels gave 
out, and the indefatigable Irish soldiers of the Twenty second 
dragged the guns. On reaching the fortress, where were stored 
vast quantities of grain and ammunition, it was found to have 
been deserted the night before. Napier and his little band blew 
it up, and then, by another route, regained their main body." 

Hyderabad was the capital of Scinde, and in it Sir James 
Outram, the English Resident, had been suddenly attacked, 
— much as Sir Alexander Burnes had been at Cabul ; but 
Outram defended himself with great spirit, and finally got 
off to the English ships lying in the Indus, on the left bank 
of which is Hyderabad. 

After this followed the battle of Meanee. Napier had 
four hundred Irishmen of the Twenty-second, and twenty- 
two hundred Sepoys and Beloochees. With these he fought 
twenty-two thousand under the Ameers, — posted in an ex- 
traordinarily strong position, but with too narrow a front, 
or they might have surrounded the little band who attacked 
them. The English officers everywhere exposed themselves, 
and when the day was won, after a great deal of hard hand- 
to-hand Homeric fighting, six officers had been killed and 
fourteen wounded. 

The battle took place not far from Hyderabad. The 
next morning the city was surrounded, and six Ameers came 
into camp and laid their swords at Sir Charles's feet. The 
swords had their hilts studded with diamonds and other 
jewels ; but Sir Charles returned them to their owners, say- 
ing, that " though their misfortunes had been great, they 
were of their own creation ; and, feeling them to be great, 
I gave them back their swords." 

Great w^as the joy of the native population of Scinde w^hen 
the Ameers, their oppressors, were defeated, and the coun- 
try fell into the hands of the English ; but the Ameers were 
not wholly conquered. They still had a large force under 
their command. Napier had been reinforced, and a month 
after the battle of Meanee he fought the battle of Hydera- 

14 



210 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

bad, which he won, though for some hours the victory was 
doubtful. One body of irregular cavalry pursued the enemy 
forty miles, and the heat was iio° in the shade. 

The Sepoys, though their deeds in the Mutiny, thirteen 
years later, were so horrible, were the brave and loving com- 
rades of the gallant Irishmen of the Twenty- second. It 
was after this battle that, almost maddened by heat and 
thirst, a party of Sepoys beheld a boy bringing some skins 
of water. As they rushed at him with frantic cries, there 
appeared six stragglers from the Twenty- second Regiment. 
At once the generous Hindoos drew their own hands from 
the skins, forgot their own sufferings, and gave drink to the 
fainting Europeans. Then they all moved on, the Sepoys 
carrying the Irishmen's guns, patting them on the back, and 
encouraging them. But the poor fellows were soon found 
to be severely wounded. Expecting there would be more 
fighting-work to do, they had struggled on to take their part 
in it, through heat and thirst and pain. Sir Charles records 
this incident in his journal. It was at this time that he sent 
his celebrated despatch, " Peccavi,''^ — I have Scinde. 

Scinde was annexed to British India, — not wholly by 
fair play towards the Ameers, but to the great satisfaction 
of its other inhabitants. Instantly the rivers were opened 
to commerce, and slavery and the slave-trade put a stop to 
by Lord EUenborough, who then turned his attention to 
the Punjaub. 

The best proof that the inhabitants of Scinde appreciated 
the blessings of their change of government is that the 
country remained faithful to the English through all the 
troubles of 1857. 

At one period the Punjaub had paid tribute to the Afghan 
ruler at Cabul ; but that was done away with by its great 
chief, Runjeet Singh, the faithful friend of the English. He 
had lent them his assistance in their advance on Cabul, but 
he did not live to know their terrible discomfiture. After 
his death his power passed from one weak hand to another, 
until at last his inheritance fell to a girl-widow of thirteen, 
and her adopted son. 



TEN YEARS, — mi-1851. 211 

All kinds of intrigues against the English were going on 
at the court of Lahore, and Lord EUenborough resolved, as 
soon as circumstances would permit, to annex the Punjaub. 
The most powerful body of men in that country were the 
Sikhs. The word "Sikh " means disciple. They were not 
Mohammedans, they were not Hindoos. They adhered to 
the faith taught them by a religious teacher called Nanek, 
who lived about 1469 ; and his teachings closely resembled 
those that Moses gave the Jews. They held the unity of 
God, the equality of all men in the sight of Heaven, and 
inculcated good-will to men. They were perhaps the 
most splendid horsemen in the world. . They had main- 
tained their independence for four centuries, till, early in 
the nineteenth, they acknowledged as their ruler Runjeet 
Singh ; but when they discovered that British influence 
was to be paramount in the Punjaub, they resolved to be 
independent once more. 

Lord EUenborough, foreseeing that the Sikhs were not 
going to take his annexation of Gwalior, and his intentions 
towards the Punjaub, with indifference, was massing troops, 
to be in readiness when a Sikh war should break out, when 
he suddenly found himself recalled by the Home Govern- 
ment. He had transgressed the rule given by Talleyrand, 
" Et surtout point de zele." He had been very zealous. 
He had an especial love for military enterprises, and his 
warlike preparations had alarmed John Company. When 
the Directors found that he had made a contract for the 
purchase of thirteen hundred draught-horses in Australia, as 
a preparation for a Sikh war, their patience was exhausted, 
and he was summarily recalled. 

Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington did not 
approve of this dismissal, but they acquiesced in it. They 
appointed Sir Henry Hardinge Governor-General, — a man 
who had brilliantly served his country, under Wellington, in 
the Peninsula, where he had lost an arm in the service. He 
had married a daughter of Lord Castlereagh. 

When Sir Henry reached India, in 1844, he found his 
Government in a state of profound tranquillity, — only a few 



212 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

robber chiefs infested the hills. He came out instructed 
to observe, above all things, a policy of peace, and not only 
to abstain from any hostile act against the powerful Sikh 
confederacy, but to avoid anything that might give them 
umbrage, however unreasonable. 

With Sir Henry was associated Sir Hugh Gough, as com- 
mander-in-chief of the armies of India. Sir Hugh was an 
Irishman, of good family, from Tipperary. He had seen 
much service in India, and also in China. " Generous and 
warm-hearted," says Alison, writing before his death, "he 
has all the affection of disposition which characterizes the 
country of his birth, and his personal influence is much 
enhanced by a figure, which, tall and commanding even in 
advanced life, bespeaks the hero." 

As Sir Henry Hardinge came out to India with the 
strictest possible instructions to reverse the policy of Lord 
EUenborough, and avoid every occasion of offending the 
Sikhs, he made no effort to concentrate British troops along 
the bank of the Sutlej, — that tributary of the Indus which 
then formed the northwestern boundary of British India. 
The Asiatic mind never conceives that any motive but fear 
can prevent an enemy or a lukewarm friend from taking an 
advantage ; and the peace policy, which succeeded the 
vigorous measures of Lord EUenborough was set down by 
the Sikhs to dread of their warhke prowess. The Afghans 
had successfully resisted the British : why not the Sikhs ? — 
a race no less brave and warlike, well disciplined, and 
admirably provided with artillery. 

At Lahore, the capital of the Punjaub, the Maranee (or 
little girl-widow) was greatly frightened by an insurrection of 
her Sikh troops, who demanded to be led at once across the 
Sutlej, to drive back the British and pursue their advantage, 
— it might be to the conquest of all India. They obtained 
permission from the Maranee, and advanced, sixty thousand 
strong, to the banks of the Sutlej. 

There is no doubt that the rules of warfare demanded the 
concentration of English troops, ready to oppose the Sikh 
army if it should cross the river ; but Sir Henry Hardinge 



TEN YEARS,— mi-1851. 213 

felt his hands tied by the instructions received from his 
Directors. He beheved himself ordered to give no provo- 
cation, but to wait till he was attacked before making any 
military preparations. 

Exultant at what they attributed to fear, the Sikh army 
crossed the Sutlej, and established themselves on the British 
side of the river. Hardinge and Gough hurried up their 
scattered troops to meet the danger. " It was," as Sir 
Charles Napier said in a private letter, " twenty thousand 
against six thousand ; and should the six thousand flinch 
! " But the six thousand did not flinch, nor their gen- 
erals. Sir Henry Hardinge, as Governor- General, was Gough's 
superior officer ; but he resigned that rank, and placed him- 
self as second in command under Sir Hugh's orders. By 
hurrying up reinforcements, the men marching six-and- 
twenty miles a day, Gough and Hardinge collected about 
fourteen thousand by December 17, 1845, the day of the 
battle of Moodkee. 

The victory was gained ; but the English loss was terrible, 
especially in officers. Among those who fell was Sir Robert 
Sale, the hero of Jellalabad. The Sikhs are admirable 
fighters, and have been ever since the close of these wars 
invaluable as horsemen in the British army. They did not 
after their defeat recross the river; they retreated to an 
intrenched camp they had formed at a place called Feroze- 
shah. There the two Generals attacked them, four days after 
the battle of Moodkee. The Sikh artillery was heavier than 
any the British had been able to bring up, and the attack 
under other circumstances would have been deemed des- 
perate. It achieved no decisive advantage. 

" Night came on, with no relief for the wounded, no food for 
the wearied, no respite for the combatants ; side by side with 
the dying and the dead the living lay down. ' What think you,' 
said Gough to Hardinge, when they were able to exchange in 
private a few words, ' What think you of our prospects ? ' 
' Think ? ' replied Hardinge. ' That we must live or die where 
we stand.' ' That is exactly my opinion,' returned Gough ; ' so 
we understand each other.' They pressed hands, and parted in 
silence." 



214 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The guns of the enemy were so much heavier than those 
of the British that the Generals soon felt sure that their 
sole hope was in a bayonet charge. Nearly the whole force, 
rushed at once, with a cheer, upon the Sikh fortification.' 
Wearied and hungry as they were, they carried the intrenched 
camp, and pressed forward in line, carrying everything before 
them, the two Generals riding in front, with captured ban- 
ners borne at their side. 

The battle of Ferozeshah was gained ; the Sikh army 
which had lost it was in flight : but another Sikh army, as 
large, and as well provided with artillery, was within three 
days' march. It was because this army was so near that 
Gough and Hardinge had risked with weary troops so des- 
perate a battle. 

As the fresh army of the enemy came up, for the first 
and only time the brave heart of Lord Gough failed him. 
This is what he has recorded in a private letter : — 

"The only time I felt a doubt was towards the evening of 
the 22d, when the fresh enemy advanced with heavy columns 
of infantry, cavalry, and guns ; and our cavalry horses were so 
thoroughly done up that they could not even command a trot. 
For a moment I felt regret (and I deeply deplore my want 
of confidence in Him who never failed me nor forsook me) as 
each passing shot left me on horseback ; but it was only for a 
moment." 

The battle had begun — who knows how it might have 
ended? — when a staff-officer blundered, and gave an order 
for which he had no authority. This providential blunder 
saved the army. The Sikhs, seeing the cavalry and horse- 
artillery of the British beginning to move off the field, took 
it for granted that they must have some great design in 
such a movement, and, believing their flank was to . be 
turned, wavered, and fell into disorder. The British infantry 
sprang forward with a loud cheer. A rhoment before, they 
had been indignant and disheartened by the apparent 
desertion of the cavalry ; now they carried everything before 
them, and the Sikh fugitives never stopped till they had 
recrossed the Sutlej. 



TEN YEARS, — 18U-1851. 21 5 

When all was over, the British troops were called to as- 
semble before the commanders-in-chief, that solemn thanks 
might be offered to Almighty God. One of the persons 
present in these battles was Prince Waldemar, brother to 
the king of Prussia, who was then on a tour in India, and 
had joined the English army. 

After these dangers were passed, the army had rest for 
almost a month. Reinforcements were hurried up from 
every part of British India, and by the end of January, 
1846, the generals had a much larger force than they had 
had before. But the Sikhs still had command of the Sutlej, 
over which they had a bridge of boats, with what engineer 
officers call a tete de pont, very strongly fortified. There 
were also very practicable fords. The village near this tete 
de pont was called Sobraon, and the battle of Sobraon was 
fought February 10, 1846. The head of the bridge was 
defended by thirty thousand Sikhs, with an immense train of 
artillery. The English army had also received some heavy 
guns from Delhi. The approach to the tete de pont was 
over a perfectly level plain, with no cover whatever for the 
attacking party. The infantry, however, dashed forward at 
a run. Among the bravest were the Ghoorkas, a native 
regiment of mountaineers, in dark-green uniforms. They 
penetrated the intrenchments, but could make no advance. 

Long and desperate was the conflict within the works ; 
but gradually the Sikhs were forced back on the bridge and 
the fords, which had risen seven inches during the fight. 
The slaughter of the fugitives as they tried to recross 
the river was horrible. Their loss on that day was ten 
thousand men. 

Four days afterwards the British army crossed the Sutlej 
by a ford, and marched on Lahore. The Maranee and her 
court did not wait their coming. They hastened to make 
submission to the English, and the war was over. Peace 
lasted but a little while. 

Sir Henry Hardinge returned to England, leaving his gov- 
ernment in apparent tranquillity. He and Sir Hugh Gough 
were both raised to the peerage. Sir Charles Napier also 



2l6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

returned home on sick leave. His strength was being 
slowly sapped by a mortal disease. 

But a year had not passed before it became certain that 
the Sikh armed force was going to submit neither to native 
rulers, nor to the English supremacy. The first Sikh aggres- 
sion was the murder of the British Resident at Mooltan, 
Mr. Vans Agnew. At once an English force was sent against 
them, and soon another great Sikh war was on the hands of 
the British. 

Lord Dalhousie was then Governor- General, and remained 
so until Lord Canning replaced him in 1856, the year 
before the Mutiny. Lord Gough, still commander-in-chief, 
again took the field against the Sikhs. This time he was 
not only across the Sutlej, but in the heart of the Punjaub. 

He fought the Sikhs, November 22, 1848, at a place 
called Ramnugger, and neither party seems to have gained 
a decisive victory. He fought them again, January 12, 
1849, at Chillian wallah, with the same result. 

When this news reached England, the public were greatly 
excited against the brave Lord Gough, and demanded that 
he should be superseded. " If you don't go," said the 
Duke of Wellington, then in his eightieth year, to Sir 
Charles Napier, — "if you don't go, I must.''' Sir Charles, 
though ill, went out to supersede Lord Gough ; but before 
he arrived. Lord Gough had redeemed his partial failures. 

A month after the battle of Chillianwallah was fought the 
battle of Goojerat. 

This victory was decisive. A band of Afghan horsemen, 
who had joined the Sikhs fled to their native hills. The 
Sikh ai;my was utterly broken up. A large part of its 
warriors enlisted in a British contingent, and no braver 
or more faithful soldiers serve the Queen. As irregular 
cavalry, they are beyond all price. The Maranee and her 
son were deprived of their power, but handsomely pensioned 
by the English Government. The Punjaub was annexed to 
British India. 

It is impossible in a sketch so brief as this . to do more 
than allude to many subjects that attracted the interest and 



TEN YEARS,— lSU-1851. 21/ 

engaged the attention of the EngUsh public during the ten 
years that elapsed between the marriage of the Queen and 
the opening of the Great Exhibition. 

Of the visits exchanged between the royalties of England 
and the fatherly King Louis Philippe, I have told at length 
elsewhere, and also how the entente cordiale was broken by 
the bourgeois King's unfortunate matrimonial speculation for 
his son in the matter of the Spanish marriages. The fall of 
Louis Philippe was the signal for revolutionary excitement 
all over Europe. England caught the infection, and Chart- 
ism (now forgotten) was the war-cry of the day. Kossuth 
came to England in 1850, but was not openly recognized 
by the EngUsh Government, as he had hoped and expected. 
But a few words may be said of the Barclay and Perkins 
episode, when the Austrian general Haynau (the flogger of 
women) received his deserts, in September, 1850, at the 
hands of London working-men : — 

" The appearance of General Haynau was remarkable, and he 
was easily recognized. He was unusually tall and slender, with 
gray moustaches of extraordinary length, fringing a sallow, 
meagre face, in which deep-set gray eyes looked impassively 
out from beneath bushy eyebrows. It was said at the time 
that a person employed in Barclay and Perkins's brewery had 
reasons for seeking to be avenged on him for some outrage on 
a kinsman who had fallen into his power. But however this 
might be, General Haynau had scarcely entered the precincts 
of the brewery when his presence became known to nearly 
every person employed in the establishment. The men instantly 
turned out, armed with whatever offensive weapon came most 
readily to hand, and assaulted him with every sort of abusive 
epithet. A truss of straw was dropped on his head from the 
floor above him, and he was pelted with missiles. His hat was 
knocked over his eyes, he was hustled from side to side, his 
coat was torn, and one man, seizing his long moustache, tried to 
cut it off. At length the General and his friends fought their 
way out of the brewery, but only to fall into the hands of the 
populace. Finally, he took refuge in the upper room of a public- 
house, and was got away by the police. 

" Inquiries were immediately set on foot, at the instigation 
of the Home Office, but without success. General Haynau 



2l8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

refused to prosecute. Lord Palmerston expressed to the Aus- 
trian Charge d' Affaires in person the regret of the Government 
for what had taken place ; but General Haynau would have 
done better, he said, to keep out of England." 

The matter led to one of the sharp disputes between the 
Queen and Lord Palmerston ; for when she objected to 
the way in which he expressed himself in a despatch to the 
Austrian Government on the subject, she learned that the 
letter had been already sent, without waiting for her opinion. 
This and Lord Palmerston's similar conduct in other cases 
led to his dismissal from the Foreign Office, where he had 
presided, with brief intervals of retirement, for twenty years. 

These things, so briefly touched upon, relate to the foreign 
policy of England ; but it may be better to speak a little 
more at length on matters that more nearly concerned the 
misfortunes or the well-being of the EngUsh population. 

In 1846, Sir Robert Peel's ministry was defeated on an 
Irish Coercion Bill, after passing the bill for the Repeal 
of the Corn Laws. In that year the famine in Ireland 
became too evident to be disregarded. The laboring class 
in that island lived chiefly on that " cursed root," as 
Cobbett called the potato,^ and few received from their 
employers any money wages. They lived principally on 
what was called " the cottier system ; " that is to say, a 
man worked for a landowner on condition of getting a bit 
of land on which he might grow potatoes, the sole food of 
himself and his family. News came to England in the 
autumn of 1845 that the long continuance of sunless wet 
and cold '' had imperilled, if not wholly destroyed, the food 
of a people." But public feeling was not fully aroused 
until a few months had developed the horrors of the 
famine. 

On the fall of Sir Robert Peel, the Whigs, with a ministry 

1 Potatoes in France in the eighteenth century were called " Hano- 
verian roots," and were suspected of some taint of Protestantism and 
heresy, until it was reported among the peasantry that King I.ouis 
XVI. had had a dish of them served at his table, and had pronounced 
them excellent. 



TEN YEARS, — mi-1851. 219 

composed largely of weak men, came into power, and the 
Tory party split into two divisions, — the Conservatives, 
who followed Sir Robert Peel, and the landowners, or old 
Tory party, whose leaders were Lord George Bentinck and 
Mr. Disraeli. 

At first it was not thought that the failure of the potato 
crop would be more than partial; but soon it began to 
appear that for two years at least the food of the poor in 
Ireland was absolutely gone. A peculiar form of fever, too, 
called the famine fever, set in among the sufferers. In 
some districts people died by hundreds of fever, dysentery, 
and of sheer starvation. In some of the worst districts the 
parish authorities could no longer afford to pay for coffins. 
How well I remember dreadful stories of famishing families, 
and women dying by the wayside after walking miles upon 
miles to procure food. There was almost a frenzy of sym- 
pathy for the sufferers in England. Little children volun- 
tarily denied themselves all delicacies that the mite such 
things would cost might swell their elders' subscription to 
the fund for sufferers by the Irish famine. Justin McCarthy 
tells us, " Whatever might be said about the dilatoriness of 
the Whig Government in passing measures for the relief of 
starving Ireland, no one could doubt the good-will of the 
English people." 

In London and the country towns subscription lists were 
opened, and the most liberal contributions poured in. In 
Liverpool many merchants each gave ;j^i,ooo. The Qua- 
kers sent over a delegation to Ireland to distribute their 
relief. Other religious bodies did likewise. National asso- 
ciations for relief were formed. Help, too, came in from 
other countries. The United States loaded several vessels 
of its navy with supplies. Joy-bells were rung all day when 
one of these vessels entered a harbor in Galway. But some 
of the help they brought proved less of a boon than was 
expected. The United States Government had naturally 
sent large supplies of corn-meal. When this was distributed 
to the ignorant and shiftless, who had no eggs or milk to 
cook it with, and no one to instruct them how to make 



220 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" mush," or "johnny-cake," or "scratch-backs," or any of 
the other compositions of corn-meal known in a planter's 
kitchen, it was pronounced so unpalatable that it could only 
be eaten as the next best thing to starvation. In its half- 
cooked state, it produced an aggravation of dysentery and 
similar troubles. 

At the present day quantities of corn and of corn-meal 
are exported to Ireland. Corn feeds stock all over Great 
Britain, and corn-meal shares with the potato the task of 
feeding the Irish peasantry. 

Terrible as the famine was, it left some good behind. It 
roused the Irish peasant from his fatalism. It drew atten- 
tion to the defective land- system in Ireland, it enlarged the 
cheap food resources of the people, and it sent us in America, 
at the very moment when railway laborers were wanted, a 
supply of emigrants very different from the puny, anarchistic, 
half- civilized Poles, Hungarians, and Italians whom we find 
it so hard either to assimilate or control. The Irish immi- 
grant had his national faults, but his children, " country 
born," as the phrase is, are Americans. 

It is computed, however, that by famine, fever, and emi- 
gration, Ireland, in 1846, lost two millions of her people. 

The ten years in " the forties," of which this chapter 
treats, was the period of the great railroad craze in England. 
Those were the days of poor Hudson, the Railway King, the 
prototype of Jeames de la Pluche, before whom the rich, 
the noble, and the beautiful bowed down, in hopes that he 
would enable them to get a share in the good things going, 
by some happy investment of their money. Plans and speci- 
fications of all projected railroads had to be sent in to the 
Parliamentary Committee on Railroad Affairs, before a cer- 
tain date. As that day approached, men in the offices of 
such civil engineers as Brunei and Stephenson, worked night 
after night, with wet towels round their heads and stimu- 
lated by strong coffee. Twenty guineas a day were offered 
for draughtsmen. The employees at one office gained great 
credit for flinging from the top of a cab at the last moment 
a bundle of papers at the porter, as at midnight he was 



TEN YEARS, — lSU-1851. 221 

closing the committee-room door. Half the railroads pro- 
jected were never made, but England on the map looked 
like a spider's web. 

Ocean steamers began regular trips across the Atlantic in 
this decade. " Ah, my dear friend," said Admiral Sir Isaac 
Coffin, in 1839, to Vincent Nolte, taking his hand kindly, 
" if you esteem your life, give up the thought of taking pas- 
sage in the ' Great Western.' She has had the good fortune 
to make one summer transatlantic voyage ; but in autumn 
and winter it is a risk to human life to sail in her. She 
may succeed once or twice, but in heavy winter storms no 
steamer can scud. Be sure of that ! " And thus he talked 
to other friends, including my father. It was during this 
decade also that Mr. Bayard, Sr., arriving in England with 
plans for a Pacific Railroad, requested my father to show 
them to Messrs. Coutts, the great bankers. My father kept 
the papers several days, and then, yielding to the persusa- 
sions of my mother, who assured him that the partners 
at Coutts' would think him crazy if he went to them 
with such a wild-cat scheme, he returned the papers to 
Mr. Bayard. 

In these days Rowland Hill achieved his great reform in 
postage. He insisted that a letter could be carried any- 
where in the United Kingdom for a penny, and that in a 
few years the increased multitude of letters would cover the 
increased expenditure. 

When the measure for the reduction of postage passed in 
Parliament, an offer was made by Government to all artists 
and others to come forward and give plans for carrying it 
into effect. The idea was that each letter must be put into 
a Government envelope. Mulready's envelope won the prize. 
It may be seen still in stamp albums, so covered with the 
design that there is little room left for an address. Britan- 
nia sits enthroned, scattering letters to the four quarters of 
the globe. There are several pretty groups, — a girl read- 
ing her lover's letter, an old Scotch peasant receiving one 
from his soldier son, etc. I think we used them two or three 
weeks, and then the Post-Office substituted the present 



222 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

stamp, — -'Queen's heads," we used to call them, — the 
invention of which was due to a young employee. 

I said that the revolutions of 1848 stirred up consid- 
erable revolutionary feeling in Great Britain. In Ireland 
it took the form of an armed demonstration by Young 
Ireland, led by Mr. Smith O'Brien, who had failed to get 
either material aid or sympathy from Lamartine. But 
the Red Republican clubs in France were loud in their 
declarations that thirty thousand Frenchmen ought to assist 
his cause. However, without French help, his battle, was 
fought in Tipperary in Widow Cormack's cabbage-garden, 
when, the rebel army having been dispersed by a handful of 
police, the insurrection was over. 

The practical form that revolutionary fervor took in 
England was advocacy of the charter. 

As far back as 1835, Chartism had its beginning in Eng- 
land. The Reform Bill, which was to have given every- 
thing to everybody, — or, at least, to^ have promoted that 
happy result, — proved, as its working became known, to have 
given little or nothing to the laboring population. " The 
only fruit of the Whig victory for the lower class was the 
passage of the New Poor Law, and that fruit was a bitter 
one." Before long, the old plan of firing stackyards and 
burning up machinery was resorted to ; and in several places 
the military had to be called out, until at last the agitation 
took shape in advocacy of what was called the People's 
Charter. The charter contained six clauses. It demanded 
universal suffrage ; vote by ballot ; equal electoral districts ; 
annual parliaments ; payment of members ; and that every 
man should be eligible for a seat in Parliament without 
any property qualification. To urge the adoption of 
the charter, a monster petition was, in 1839, presented to 
Parliament. It purported to contain 1,200,000 signatures. 
Mr. Feargus O'Connor, who agitated both for England and 
Ireland, was the Chartist leader. He was anxious that the 
petition should be carried to the House by a procession of 
five hundred thousand men, each with a musket on his 
shoulder ; but other counsels prevailed, and on June 14, 



TEN YEARS, — 1S41-1S51. 223 

1839, the bulky document, attended by delegates from the 
Trades Unions, and mounted on a car constructed for the 
purpose, was carried to the House of Commons, and laid, 
literally on the floor, but, in parliamentary language, "on 
the table ; " that is, no notice whatever was taken of it. 
It made not the slightest impression. 

Chartism continued to be agitated for nearly nine more 
years, until, in the spring of 1848, when all Europe was 
feeling the effects of the late improvised French Revolu- 
tion, Feargus O'Connor, unconscious that events in other 
countries had put the nobility, gentry, and bourgeoisie of 
England on their guard,^ and also that London does not 
make revolutions and send laws into the Provinces as 
Paris does in France, thought the moment had arrived to 
resuscitate the Monster Petition, and possibly to overthrow 
the British Government. During the month of March there 
had been local riots throughout England and Scotland, 
suppressed everywhere, of course, but serving to put the 
enemies of Chartism on the qui vive. Ireland took no inter- 
est in the Charter ; what she was preparing to agitate for 
was not a Reformed British Parliament, but a Parliament for 
herself. 

1 The catechism learned by all members of the most popular 
Revolutionary Society in Paris at that period may be supposed to 
contain the views and principles of others : — 

" What is the present government ? — A traitor to the French people. 

" In whose interest does it govern? — In that of a small number of 
privileged persons. 

" Who are the aristocrats of the present day ? — All moneyed men, 

— bankers, contractors, monopolists, great proprietors, stock operators, 
in one word, all who grow rich at the expense of the people. 

" In right of what do they govern ? — Force. 
" What is the chief vice of society ? — Selfishness. 
"What takes the place of honor, honesty, and virtue? — Money. 
" Who is the man most esteemed in the world ? — He who is rich and 
powerful. 

" Who is the man persecuted, despised, downtrodden by the law ? 

— The poor man and the weak. 

" Who do you mean by the people ? — All laboring men who are 
citizens. 
" How does the law treat the people ? — Like slaves." 



224 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Mr. Feargus O'Connor, now a Member of Parliament, 
undertook to present the Monster Petition to the House of 
Commons. The presentation, it was announced, would 
take place on April lo, 1848. 

My father, with his family, was then in London, on our 
way to the United States. We had left Paris a month after 
Louis Philippe, — as soon, indeed, as we could get away ; 
for it was almost impossible for several weeks to procure 
any small change. 

In view of probable disturbances, all the police in Lon- 
don were ordered to be on duty on the line of the proces- 
sion ; and, to keep peace and awe thieves in other parts 
of London, all the householders and young men enrolled 
themselves for the day as special constables. Prince Louis 
Napoleon patrolled a street near a house where we were 
staying. A deathlike stillness prevailed that day over the 
greater part of London. Chevalier Bunsen tells us that a 
night or two before, at a party at Lord Palmerston's, he had 
said to the Duke of Wellington, " Your Grace will take us 
all in charge, and London, too, on the tenth?" "Yes," 
replied the Duke, " we have taken our measures ; but not a 
soldier will you see." 

The Queen, with her three-weeks-old baby (Princess 
Louise), went down to Osborne. The Bank of England 
closed its doors and looked deserted ; but it had a strong 
armed force within. 

The day, if I remember, was somewhat lowering. My 
father went off early towards Kennington Common, where 
the Chartists were to assemble. He had just seen a Pa- 
risian mob in all the excitement of a revolution, and he 
wanted to compare them. The greater part of the men he 
saw collecting upon Kennington Common he reported to 
be a dejected, hungry-looking rabble. Instead of the one 
hundred and fifty thousand men whom Feargus O'Connor 
expected to march in his procession, there were not twenty- 
five thousand at the place of rendezvous, and the larger 
part of these were mere spectators. 

The procession was never formed. The police gave 



TEN YEARS, — mi-1851. 22$ 

notice to Mr. O'Connor that none would be allowed to fol- 
low the petition. The Chartist leader mounted on a cab 
and announced this to the assemblage. Much confusion 
arose. Some of those in charge of the proceedings were 
for braving the police, but wiser counsels prevailed. The 
petition was packed into three street cabs, and sent off by 
itself to the House of Commons, whither Mr. O'Connor 
hurried to receive it. 

A procession was then formed of about eight thousand 
persons ; but a manoeuvre, prepared beforehand by the Duke 
of WeUington, cut it in two. Only a few hundreds crossed 
the bridges, the rest dispersed, and by nightfall London 
had recovered from its fears, and was rejoicing in its powers 
of self-protection. 

Mr. McCarthy is quite right in saying that nothing could 
have exceeded the alarm of London on the morning of the 
loth of April. We had just come scathless out of a Revo- 
lution, so that it rather amused us ; but Mr. McCarthy 
says : — 

"The Chartists in their most sanguine moments never as- 
cribed to themselves half the strength that honest alarmists of 
the botcrgeois class were ready that morning to ascribe to them. 
The wildest rumors were spread abroad in many parts of the 
metropolis, and citizens were left during the greater part of the 
day to all the agonies of uncertainty and doubt." 

Mr. O'Connor presented the petition. He told the 
House that it contained five million seven hundred thou- 
sand signatures. The Committee on Public Petitions was 
directed to ascertain this, and report to the House accord- 
ingly. The Committee called in a small army of law sta- 
tioner's clerks, and went to work to analyze the signatures. 
Instead of five miUion seven hundred thousand, they fell 
short of two million. 

" But that was not all. The Committee found in many cases 
that whole sheets of the petition were signed by the one hand, and 
that eight per cent of the signatures were those of women. The 
names of the Queen, Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, 

15 



226 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, etc., appeared again and 
again on the Chartist roll. 'Cheeks the Marine' and 'Davy 
Jones' were likewise repeated with bewildering iteration." 

A few nights after the loth of April I was present at 
Exeter Hall to hear the oratorio of the "Creation." But 
before the oratorio began, "God save the Queen " was called 
for. The audience rose to its feet, as in England it is 
proper to do when the national air is sung ; but such wild 
enthusiasm I had never witnessed as the great organ and 
the great chorus led the anthem, and every voice in the 
vast crowd joined, with waving of hats and handkerchiefs, 
while very many eyes were filled with tears. A week or 
two before I had heard the " Marseillaise " sung on the 
Boulevards by three hundred thousand voices at the funeral 
of the " victims ; " but this burst of loyalty on the per- 
formance of "God save the Queen" was even more spirit- 
stirring. 

The Chartist movement died out ; it was smothered by 
ridicule. Its leader, Feargus O'Connor, became insane. 
Some of the reforms petitioned for have been since adopted 
by Parliament, but not in deference to Chartist agitation. 
The secret ballot is now employed at elections ; but its 
working by no means fulfils the expectations formed by 
those who clamored for it in 1848. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE GREAT EXHIBITION. SIR ROBERT PEEL. THE DUKE 

OF WELLINGTON. BARON STOCKMAR. 

'T^HE last chapter has told some of the events of Queen 
■*• Victoria's early reign. Those years found her, in the 
words of the national anthem, *■' victorious, happy, and glori- 
ous," loving and beloved, with her young children growing up 
around her, and with the husband who was so dear to her 
becoming more and more appreicated by the best men of 
England, as his high qualities ripened and developed day 
by day. 

The little rift, however, in those days in the Queen's happi- 
ness (it can hardly take the name of sorrow) was that she knew 
that Prince Albert amongst her " people " was not popular. 
German alliances are never liked in England. The multi- 
plicity of petty princedoms in Germany has made German 
brides and bridegrooms almost always poor, and the British 
public despises poverty in high places. When Prince Albert 
married. Parliament had refused to give him the allowance 
that, in 1816, had been given to Prince Leopold, and 
it refused him the title of Prince Consort, which would 
have given him precedence next after his wife on state 
occasions. 

One of the Prince's especial duties was to preside at pub- 
lic meetings and at public dinners. His speeches were not 
elegant, but they were always full of good sense, and were 
delivered in excellent English, though he retained a slight 
German accent. He took an especial interest in the work- 
ing-classes, saying in public that it gratified him to take any 
opportunity of proving to those who attacked the royal 
family that that family was not merely living on the earn- 



228 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ings of the people, as some books and newspapers would 
represent, without caring for the poor laborers, but were 
anxious for their welfare above everything, and ready to 
co-operate in any scheme for the amelioration of their con- 
dition. "We may possess these feelings," he adds, "and 
yet the mass of the people may be ignorant we feel them, 
because they have never heard it expressed, or seen any 
tangible proof of it." 

This interest in the welfare of the laboring-classes (a 
prominent subject now) was a very novel one then, and it 
stimulated the Prince to make his plan of the Great Exhi- 
bition. The idea and the plan were discussed between the 
Prince and Sir Robert Peel for several years before it was 
propounded to other influential men in England. To Prince 
Albert belong all the glory and credit of the First Great 
Exhibition, and of the other exhibitions that have succeeded 
it, including the one pre-eminent in beauty and extent, our 
own World's Fair in the White City. He showed others 
how to break the egg and set it on its end. 

The germ idea of exhibitions of manufactured articles 
and machinery the Prince got from the history of his own 
country ; it is found in the Frankfort fairs of the sixteenth 
century, " where," as a scholar and an eye-witness has told 
us, "books, pictures, tapestry, the masterpieces of the 
armorer's art, the goldsmith's, and the jeweller's," were 
drawn to Frankfort, as a convenient centre, from all parts 
of the Continent, besides every invention of machinery that 
could make one pair of hands do the work of several. 
" Machines of exceeding ingenuity are there," says the 
scholar (contemporary, probably, with Columbus) , — " ma- 
chines worthy of Archimedes himself, — and numberless 
instruments adapted for use in different arts." 

In France there had been exhibitions of French manu- 
factures from 1798, during the Directory, to 1849 \ but the 
Prince's idea was to have an exhibition of the products of 
all nations. Up to that time, " all nations " had preferred 
to keep workmen of other countries from seeing or knowing 
too much about their own especial industries ; so that this 



THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 



229 



Exhibition was " a new departure," and a great advance in 
international good feeling and liberal thought. 

The idea of such an enterprise was first propounded by 
the Prince in the summer of 1849 to four leading members 
of the Society* of Arts, and it was at once decided that the 
building must be in Hyde Park, as the Paris Exhibition of 
French Manufactures had been held in the Champs Elys^es. 
From that day till May i, 1851, when the Exhibition was 
opened, the opposition to it of all kinds was inconceivable. 
The "Times" attacked the idea of its being in Hyde 
Park. " They would like to banish us and our nuisance 
to the Isle of Dogs," wrote the Prince to Baron Stockmar, 
— the Isle of Dogs being an island in the river Thames. 

The Prince's idea was that the Exhibition should be 
divided into four great sections, — the first an exhibition of 
raw materials and produce ; the second, machinery and 
ingenious inventions ; the third, manufactured articles ; the 
fourth, sculpture and art. 

The bankers and merchants of London and the City 
Government responded eagerly. A commissioner was ap- 
pointed to superintend and to promote the Exhibition, 
and money was subscribed freely. 

So far, all seemed to prosper. At the Lord Mayor's din- 
ner, in 1849, Prince Albert spoke warmly of his project. 
He fancied it was to be the inauguration of peace. On the 
contrary, it was succeeded immediately by the Crimean 
war ; and since then the civilized world, burdened with 
miUtary preparations, has been " tossed like the troubled 
sea, that cannot rest." 

"The Exhibition," said the Prince, "will give the world 
a true test, a living picture, of the point of industrial 
development that the world has reached, and will be a new 
starting-point for men." And, in truth, it became to the 
industrial world an education. 

Nevertheless, in 1849, 1850, and 185 1, the opposition 
to the scheme was vehement and excessive. " Many 
persons," says Mr. Justin McCarthy, "were disposed to 
sneer at it ; many were sceptical about its doing any 



230 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

good; not a few still regarded Prince Albert as a for- 
eigner and a pedant, and were slow to believe that any- 
thing really practical could be developed under his influence 
and protection." 

One of the funniest movements got up in opposition to 
it was that of Colonel Sibthorp, — a Member of the 
House of Commons who seemed to have been sent up to 
Parliament for its especial diversion. Tall, lank, cadaver- 
ous, with loose coat, loose trousers, a white hat, and an 
enormous moustache, we may see him in every one of the 
early numbers of "Punch" for many years. He was the 
incarnation of fanatic Toryism. Probably no other edu- 
cated man in England went the length he did in opposition 
to all progress and any change. " Foreigners he lumped 
together," says Justin McCarthy, " as a race of beings whose 
chief characteristics were Popery and immorality ; " and to 
invite over to England hordes of these wretches was the 
greatest curse that could befall the country. What influ- 
ence might not this influx have on English morals? '' Take 
care," he cried in the House of Commons, " of your wives 
and daughters ! Take care of your property and your 
lives ! " It was Colonel Sibthorp who declared that he 
prayed for a great storm of hail and lightning to shatter the 
building destined to bring such calamities on his country ; 
and ''the enemy of mankind," he declared, "had inspired 
Englishmen with this scheme, by which foreigners, who by 
free-trade had robbed the English of their riches, might now 
be enabled to rob them of their honor." 

The ruin of Hyde Park was prophesied if it should be 
selected as the site for the building of the Exhibition. 
Lord Campbell, the ex-Chancellor, presented a petition to 
Parliament, praying that no part of Hyde Park might be 
used for that purpose, and Lord Brougham upbraided 
the House of Commons for its servility in deferring to 
royalty, and giving its countenance to a rash idea, because 
it was Prince Albert's. " Such facts," he shouted, " only 
show more painfully that absolute prostration of the 
understanding which takes place even in the minds of 



THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 23 1 

the bravest, when the word Prince is mentioned in this 
country." 

The worry of this opposition, and the work the enter- 
prise entailed, tried the Prince's strength to the uttermost. 
His health was good, but from his boyhood Stockmar had 
observed that he had not strength to bear a strain, and the 
worry and work necessitated by his great project seriously 
told upon him. But his sweetness of temper in this, as in 
all other trials, never forsook him. He was one who had 
learned " to labor and to wait ; " or, in the words of another 
poet, could say, 

" My faith is large in Time 
And that which shapes it to some perfect end." 

To Stockmar he wrote : — 

"The opponents of the Exhibition work with might and main 
to throw all the old women here into a panic, and to drive 
myself crazy. The strangers, they give out, are certain to 
commence a thorough revolution here, to murder Victoria 
and myself, and to proclaim a Red Republic in England. The 
plague, too, is to be the consequence of such vast multitudes, 
and it will swallow up all those whom the increased price of 
everything has not already swept away. For all this I am 
responsible, and against all this I have to make efficient 
provision." 

The King of Prussia, a timid man and an idealist, whose 
mind a few years later weakened to imbeciUty, for a long 
time refused to let his brother and heir-presumptive (the 
future Kaiser Wilhelm) go to London for the opening, 
being afraid of Red Republicans. The Duke of Cam- 
bridge expressed himself in the same way. "Punch" 
never ceased poking fun at the project ; diplomatists dis- 
couraged it : in short, it was very far from finding public 
sympathy. At one time it seemed certain that the Exhibi- 
tion building would not be suffered in Hyde Par^ ; and, as 
the Prince said, "If we are driven out of the Park, the 
work is done for." 

Then, too, there was the difficulty of choosing a design 
for the building. Competitors were to submit their draw- 



232 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ings to a committee on a certain day. All were huge 
structures of brickwork, costly and ugly ; but one must of 
necessity have been chosen, had not, the day before, a 
certain thing taken place. 

The Duke of Devonshire, whose greenhouses at Chis- 
wick are one of the wonders in England, had a landscape- 
gardener in his employ named Joseph Paxton. He was 
the son of a common gardener, but had had a superior 
education, and the position he held gave him standing 
as a gentleman, so that he was a magistrate and a member 
of the Quarter Sessions at Derby. He was listening to the 
trial of some culprit, long drawn out, and drawing on some 
paper before him. When the trial and the drawing were 
finished he was so well satisfied with the latter that he 
resolved rapidly to complete it, and to take it instantly 
up to London and submit it to the Exhibition Building 
Committee, if there was still time for competition. By 
another happy chance (if chance there be), there was in 
the same railway carriage a member of the Building Com- 
mittee going up to the meeting the next day. Mr. Paxton 
showed him his plan. He saw at once its novelty and its 
advantages, but feared it was too late. However, it proved 
to be in time to be considered, and was so manifestly the 
best of the designs that it was at once accepted. The 
building was as much an object of curiosity as were the 
collections under its roof. It was at once fairy-Hke and 
gigantic. The celerity with which it rose, as it were, out 
of the earth, and the effect produced on all minds by its 
novelty and beauty, are best described by Thackeray : — 

" But yesterday ' a naked sod ' ! 

The dandies sneered from Rotten Row, 
And cantered o'er it, to and fro ; 
And see — 't is done ! 
• As though 't were by a wizard's rod, 
A blazing arch of lucid glass 
Leaps like a fountain from the grass 
To meet the sun ! " 

Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Normanby in Paris : — 



THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 233 

"The building itself is far more worth seeing than anj'thing 
in it, though many of its contents are worthy of admiration." 

We can hardly have a better accotmt of the opening of 
the Exhibition than that given us by the Queen herself : — 

" The Queen and Prince came back to London a month 
before the opening of the Exhibition. They found the beauti- 
ful building finished, it having been raised almost like Alad- 
din's palace, and goods were pouring in from all directions. 
... A few days before the opening, the Queen made a private 
visit to the new Industrial Palace to examine the exhibits more 
closely than she would have been able to do after they were 
thrown open to the public." 

She says in her own Journal, of this visit : — 

" We remained there two hours and a half, and I came back 
quite beaten, and my head bewildered from the myriads of 
beautiful and wonderful things which would quite dazzle one's 
eyes. Such efforts have been made, and our people have 
shown such taste in their manufactures ! All owing to the 
Great Exhibition and to Albert, — all to him! We went up 
into the gallery, and the sight from there, with the numerous 
courts full of all sorts of objects of art, manufactures, etc., is 
quite marvellous. The noise was overpowering, for so much 
is going on everywhere, and from twelve to twenty thousand 
people engaged in arranging all sorts of things." 

But poor Prince Albert, who was nearly worn out with 
work and worry, writes the same night in his Journal : — 

"Terrible trouble with the arrangements for the opening." 

And he was so " beaten," to use the Queen's somewhat 
strange word, that next day she records, — 

" My poor Albert is terribly fagged. All day long some 
question or other, some little difficulty or hitch, — all which 
Albert takes with the greatest quiet and good temper." 

■ The next day, the Queen paid a second private visit to 
the Crystal Palace, to show it to the Prince and Princess of 
Prussia (the Emperor Willuam and Empress Augusta) . 

"They were thunderstruck," she says. "The noise and 
bustle were even greater than yesterday, as so many prepara- 



234 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tioiis for the seats of the spectators were going on. Certainly 
much is still to be done. We walked entirely round the gal- 
leries. The fountains were playing below, some beautiful ones, 
— and many flowers and palms have been placed, which have a 
most charming effect." 

She goes on to remark that her cousin, Prince George 
of Cambridge, had showed great apprehensions, which 
she could not understand, concerning dangers attending 
the assemblage of such a crowd as might be expected in 
the Parks on the next day. But the Queen was not to 
be made nervous. She had a well-founded belief in the 
good temper and loyalty of her people, and the event 
proved that she was right. " I never,", wrote a distin- 
guished General, " saw on any occasion, except the corona- 
tion, such a universal disposition to be pleased, as was 
shown on that day." 

Of the Crystal Palace itself, Sir Theodore Martin says : 

" The shock of delighted surprise which every one felt on 
first entering the great Transept of Sir Joseph Paxton's build- 
ing was as novel as it was deep. Its vastness was measured 
by the two great elms, two of the giants of the Park, which 
rose far into the air, with all their wealth of foliage, as free and 
unconfined as if there were nothing between them and the open 
sky. The plash of fountains, the luxuriance of the tropical 
foliage, the play of colors, from the choicest flowers, carried on 
into the vistas of the nave by the rich dyes of carpets and stuffs 
from the costhest looms, were enough to fill eye and mind with 
a pleasure never to be forgotten, even without a vague sense of 
what lay far beyond in the accumulated results of human inge- 
nuity and cultivated art. One general effect of beauty had been 
produced by the infinitely varied work of the thousands who 
had separately co-operated towards this wonderful display ; and 
the structure in which it was set, by its graceful lines, and the 
free play of light which it admitted, seemed to fulfil every con- 
dition that could be desired for setting off the treasures thus 
brought together. . . . Beautiful at all times, the sight which 
the Transept presented on the opening day, with its eager 
crowds raised row upon row, with the toilets of the women, 
and the sprinkling of court costumes and uniforms, was one 
which men grew eloquent in describing. As the eye rested on 



THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 235 

the rich and varied picture, the first thought that rose was one 
of gratitude to the Prince who had carried on the work in spite 
of opposition and so many obstacles, and who stood there with 
his accustomed air of modest calm, looking upon the splen- 
did fulfilment of what two years before he had conceived in 
thought." 

The Queen's Diary says, May i, 185 1 : — 

" The great event has taken place, — a complete and beauti- 
ful triumph, a glorious and touching sight, — one which 1 shall 
ever be proud of for my beloved Albert and for my country. 
Yes ! it is a day which makes my heart swell with pride and 
glory and thankfulness ! We began it with tenderest greetings 
for the birthday of our dear little Arthur. Our humble gifts of 
toys were added to by far more splendid and artistic gifts from 
the Prince and Princess of Prussia, and a nice little clock from 
Mamma. The Park presented a wonderful spectacle, crowds 
streaming through it, carriages and troops passing, quite like 
the Coronation Day, and for me the same anxiety, — no ! greater 
anxiety, — on account of my beloved Albert. The day was 
bright, and all bustle and excitement. At half-past eleven all the 
procession of state carriages was in motion. The Green Park and 
Hyde Park were all one densely crowded mass of human beings, 
in the highest good humor and utmost enthusiasm. I never 
saw Hyde Park look as it did, as far as the eye could reach. A 
little rain fell just as we started ; but before we came near the 
Crystal Palace the sun shone and gleamed upon the gigantic 
edifice, upon which the flags of all nations were floating. We 
drove up Rotten Row, and got out at the entrance on that side. 
The glimpse of the Transept through the iron gates, the waving 
palms, flowers, statues, myriads of people filling the galleries 
and seats around, with the flourish of trumpets as we entered, 
gave us a sensation which I can never forget, and I felt much 
moved. We went for a moment to a little side-room where 
we left our shawls, and where we found Mamma and Mary,^ 
and outside were standing the other Princes. In a few seconds 
we proceeded, Albert leading me, having Vicky at his hand, and 
Bertie holding mine. The sight when we came to the middle, 
where the steps and chair (which I did not sit on) were placed, 
with the beautiful crystal fountain just in front of it, was mag- 
nificent, — so vast, so glorious, so touching. One felt, as so 
many did whom I have since spoken to, filled with devotion, — ■ 

1 Princess Mary of Cambridge, now Princess Teck. 



236 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

more so than by any service I had ever heard. The tremendous 
cheers, the joy expressed in every face, the immensity of the^ 
building, the mixture of palms, flowers, trees, statues, fountains ; 
the organ (with two hundred instruments and six hundred 
voices, which sounded like nothing) ; and my beloved husband, 
the author of this Peace Festival which united the industries 
of all nations upon earth, — all this was moving indeed, and 
it was, and is, a day to hve forever. God bless my dearest 
Albert ! God bless my dearest country, which has shown itself 
so great to-day ! One felt so grateful to the great God, who 
seemed to pervade all and to bless all. The only event it at all 
reminds me of was the Coronation ; but this day's festival was a 
thousand times superior, in fact, it is unique, and can bear no 
comparison from its peculiarity, beauty, and combination of such 
striking objects. I mean it bore a slight resemblance to the 
Coronation only as to its solemnity. The enthusiasm and cheer- 
ing, too, were much more touching ; for in a church naturally all 
is silent. 

" Albert left my side after ' God Save the Oueen ' had been 
sung, and, at the head of the Commissioners, — a curious assem- 
blage of politicians and distinguished men, — read me the Report, 
which is a long one, and to which I made a short answer ; after 
which the Archbishop of Canterbury offered up a short and 
appropriate prayer, followed by the Hallelujah Chorus, during 
which the Chinese Mandarin came forward and made me his 
obeisance. This concluded, the procession began. It was 
beautifully arranged and of great length, the prescribed order 
being exactly adhered to. The Nave was full, which had not 
been intended ; but still there was no difficulty, and the whole 
long walk from one end to the other was made in the midst of 
continued and deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs. 
Every one's face was bright and smiHng, though many had tears 
in their eyes. Many Frenchmen cried out, ' Vive la Reine ! ' 
One could, of course, see nothing but what was near in the Nave, 
and nothing in the Courts. The organs were but little heard, 
but the military band, at one end, had a very fine effect. As we 
passed along, they played the march from ' Athalie.' The beau- 
tiful Amazon in bronze, by Kiss, looked very magnificent. The 
old Duke and Lord Anglesey walked arm-in-arm, which was a 
touching sight. We returned to our own place, and Albert told 
Lord Breadalbane to declare the Exhibition was opened, which 
he did in a loud voice, followed by a flourish of trumpets and a 
tremendous cheering. The Prince and Princess of Prussia were 
quite delighted and impressed. That we felt happy — thankful 



THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 2 $7 

■ — I need not say ; proud of all that had passed, of my dear hus- 
band's success, and of the behavior of my good people. I was 
more impressed than I can say by the scene. It was one that 
never can be effaced from my memory, and never will be from 
that of any one who witnessed it. All went off so well, and 
without the slightest accident. Albert's emphatic words last 
year, when he said that the feeling would be ' that of deep 
thankfulness to the Almighty for the blessings which He has 
bestowed upon us already here below,' were this day realized. 

" I must not omit to mention an interesting episode in this 
day; viz., the visit of the good old Duke, on this his eighty- 
second birthday, to his little godson, our dear little Arthur. He 
came to see us at five, and gave him a golden cup, and some 
toys which he had himself chosen 

" We dined e/i /ami7/e, and then went to Covent Garden, 
where we saw the two finest acts of the ' Huguenots,' given as 
beautifully as last year. I was rather tired, but we were both so 
happy, — so full of thankfulness. God is indeed our kind and 
merciful Father ! " 

The Chinese Mandarin, to whom the Queen alludes, was 
a Chinese in full costume, who, when the Hallelujah Chorus 
was being performed, made his way slowly round the great 
fountain and prostrated himself before the Queen. 

" No one could help admiring his perfect self-possession, and 
nonchalance of manner. He talked with nobody, yet he seemed 
perfectly at home, and on friendly terms with all around him. 
In the procession the ambassadors, having no Chinese repre- 
sentative among them, impounded him into their part of the 
procession, where he bore himself with a steadiness and gravity 
that made him well become his situation." 

Among Prince Albert's private papers, when examined 
after his death, was found a newspaper slip from the " Times " 
containing Thackeray's noble Ode to that May day. I have 
already quoted one verse from it about the magical celerity 
with which the glass palace was raised. Here are four more 
verses, recording his impressions of the opening of the 
Exhibition : — 



238 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" I felt a thrill of love and awe 

To mark the different garb of each, 
The changing tongue, the various speech 
Together blent. 
A thrill, methinks, like his who saw 
All people dwelling upon earth 
Praising our God with solemn mirth, 
And one consent ! 

" Behold her in her royal place, 

A gentle lady ; — and the hand 
That sways the sceptre of this land 
How frail and weak ! 
Soft is the voice, and fair the face : 

She breathes Amen to prayer and hymn ; 
No wonder that her eyes are dim, 
And pale her cheek. 

" The fountain in the basin plays, 

The chanting organ echoes clear. 
An awful chorus 't is to hear 
A wondrous song ! 
Swell, organ ! swell your trumpet blast ; 

March Queen and royal pageant, march 
By splendid aisle and springing arch 
Of this fair Hall ! 

" And see above the fabric vast 

God's boundless heavens are bending blue, 
God's peaceful sun is shining through 
And beaming over all ! " 

The greatest triumph of the day was in the perfect behavior 
of the people. The Home Secretary vs^as able to report to 
the Queen the next morning that there had not been one 
police case among the crowd. " There were no demonstra- 
tions of Red Republicans, of hostile Chartists, or of Irish 
agitators." There were thirty thousand people within the 
building, and nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand people 
lined the streets between the Exhibition and Buckingham 
Palace, and yet the police met with no single instance of 
trouble in the crowd. Lord Palmerston wrote that no in- 
vited guests in a lady's drawing-room could have conducted 
themselves with more propriety than did the crowd that 
day; and this, more than anything else, seems to have im- 




S/Ji ROBERT PEEL. 



S/J? ROBERT PEEL. 239 

pressed itself on foreigners. Jules Janin, the brilliant French 
essayist and journalist, wrote of the scene : — 

" The English are a most strange people ! Always calm, 
they press on; but they do so within certain limits. Their very 
enthusiasm is patient. They do not like to be governed, but 
they are ready to govern themselves ; and any one who infringes 
established order is seized at once by his next neighbor and 
handed over to a policeman. The crowd at the Crystal Palace 
vanished quietly away. At three o'clock no one would have 
supposed that thirty thousand persons, eager to see and hear, 
had been that morning in the building." 

" Nor," says Justin McCarthy, " did the subsequent his- 
tory of the Exhibition beUe the promise of its opening. It 
continued to attract delighted crowds to the last." 

In an industrial and educational point of view it did all, 
and more than all, that had been hoped from it. It re- 
mained open from May i until the middle of October ; and 
when it closed there was a surplus fund, wholly unexpected 
by the Commissioners, which it cost them much anxious 
deliberation to dispose of. The beautiful building of glass 
and iron was, as we all know, not destroyed, but removed 
to the village of Sydenham, where it is now one of the 
sights of London, being a perfect museum of interesting 
and curious things. In it are also given concerts of music 
of the highest character. 

"The years 1849 to 1851 had seen the failure of many 
splendid hopes, and the deaths of many illustrious men." 
Among these were Louis Philippe in his exile, the good 
Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV., and Louise, Queen 
of the Belgians, Queen Victoria's warm personal friend ; 
but the noblest prey death harvested in those years was 
Sir Robert Peel. 

A brilliant debate had taken place in the House of Com- 
mons on Lord Palmerston's manner of bullying the Greek 
Government, on behalf of a Maltese Jew, Don Pacifico, 
whose house had been plundered at Athens. This man 
claimed protection from the British Government as a British 
subject. Lord Palmerston triumphed, both in the debate 



240 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and in the reparation and apology he forced from the 
Greek Government. The debate was a long and very 
brilliant one, lasting till four o'clock in the morning of 
June 29, 1850. Sir Robert Peel made on that tDCcasion 
one of his finest speeches. He was not usually a great 
orator, but he was a wonderful debater. Every word he 
said was well considered, and carried weight with all par- 
ties in the House of Commons.^ 

Leaving the House after four o'clock in the morning. Sir 
Robert went home to take a little sleep. He, could not 
have slept long, for at mid-day he had an appointment to 
attend a meeting of the Exhibition Commissioners at Buck- 
ingham Palace. The meeting was held to consider means 
to oppose the popular clamor against erecting the building 
for the Exhibition in Hyde Park. After the meeting. Sir 
Robert went home to lunch, and then set out for a ride in 
Hyde Park. He was riding alone, without a groom. He 
called first at Buckingham Palace, and wrote his name in 
the Queen's visiting- book. He had not proceeded much 
farther, when he paused to say a few words to a young lady 
who was on horseback. After she rode on, his horse took 
fright (it is believed at a dog). It shied, and threw him 
off. Unhappily, he fell clinging to the bridle. This brought 
the horse down on its knees, directly upon the breast of its 
master. Sir Robert was mortally injured internally. He 
lingered three days, delirious most of the time, and died 
July 2, 1850. When the Duke of Wellington announced 
his death in the House of Lords, big tears ran down his 
cheeks. " In all the course of my acquaintance with Sir 
Robert Peel," he said, "I never knew a man in whose 
truth and justice I had more lively confidence, or in whom 
I saw a more invariable desire to promote the public good. 
In the whole course of my communications with him, I 
never knew an instance in which he did not show the 
strongest attachment to truth ; and I never saw, in the 
whole course of my fife, the slightest reason for suspecting 

1 I heard him speak once in the House of Commons, and was 
impressed by his calmness and dignity. 



SIR ROBERT FEEL. 24 1 

that he stated anything which he did not believe to be the 
fact." 

Prince Albert, on hearing the news of his death, wrote 
thus to his friend Stockmar : — 

" You will mourn with us deeply, for you know the extent of 
our loss, and valued our friend as we did. You will have heard 
that Peel fell with, or rather from, his horse opposite our garden 
wall last Saturday, and broke his collar-bone and shoulder-blade. 
He suffered greatly, and was worn out with pain, fever, and a 
gouty constitution. Only a few hours before his accident he 
was seated with us in the Commission, advising us as to the 
difficult position into which we had been thrown in regard to 
the Exhibition, by the refusal to allow us the use of the Park. 
The debate on Palmerston had lasted the previous night until 
past four in the morning, and Peel had made an admirable 
speech, — now he is cold. We are in deep grief; in addition 
to which I cannot conceal from you that we are on the point of 
having to abandon the Exhibition altogether. We have an- 
nounced our intention to do so if, on the day the vast building 
ought to be begun, the site is taken from us. Peel was to 
have taken charge of the business in the Lower House. It is 
to come to a vote to-morrow, and the public is inflamed by the 
newspapers to madness." 

Elsewhere Prince Albert calls Sir Robert Peel " the best 
of men, our truest friend, and the bulwark of the throne." 

The feeling of Englishmen of all parties when they heard 
of Peel's death was as if each had received a sudden blow. 
I remember its effect upon my father (then in America) 
and on myself. We could not believe it true. From the 
moment of his accident crowds thronged his door, to whom 
a bulletin every hour was read by a policeman. 

As soon as he was dead, opposition to the Exhibition was 
withdrawn in Parliament. It was known that he had had 
at heart that the building should be erected in Hyde Park, 
and, with tenderness to his memory, members did not like 
to vote against a measure he was to have advocated in the 
House of Commons. 

Sir Robert Peel sprang, as it were, from the very heart of 
English industry. His ancestors had been yeomen in the 

16 



242 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

North of England. His father and grandfather, though not 
inventors themselves, were men who took up and applied 
inventions. "They were," says an Enghsh writer, "as 
manufacturers what their descendant was as a statesman. 
Solid worth, integrity, fortitude, and perseverance marked 
the manufacturing career of the Peels." 

Like other manufacturers, they had great difficulty in 
introducing machinery into cotton-weaving, because of the 
opposition of the weavers in hand-looms ; but the change 
was accomplished, and great wealth flowed into the family. 
The first Sir Robert, the manufacturer, was a stanch sup- 
porter of Mr. Pitt, and from him he received his baro- 
netcy. Very early the old man began to dream of political 
success for his promising son. He brought up his boy 
in the principles of strong conservatism, a Tory of the 
Tories ; but he brought him up also in a religious home, 
where all the middle-class virtues of Englishmen were culti- 
vated, — where labor was honored, and frugality, even in 
the midst of wealth, was esteemed. 

Robert Peel went to Harrow and to Oxford, associating, 
in virtue of his wealth, his talents, and his future baronetcy, 
with the most aristocratic young fellows of his time. He 
gained the highest honors Oxford can bestow, — taking what 
is called a " Double First ; " that is, he took a degree of the 
first class in both classics and mathematics, which in those 
days was almost an unprecedented honor. When httle more 
than twenty-one, he entered Parliament, and at the age of 
twenty-four was Secretary for Ireland. 

The troubles of 1798 had hardly died out. Ireland was 
restless, sullen, and discontented, with enormously more 
reason for her disaffection and discontent than she has ever 
had in our own day. Corruption and force were the two 
things by which Lord Castlereagh governed Ireland ; and it is 
creditable to Peel that, though he served six years as Irish 
Secretary, he was, as far as possible, humane, and never 
was accused of making a wrong use of influence or money. 

Once he sent a challenge to O'Connell, but on no other 
occasion was he known to lose his temper. "He never 
uttered a harsh word in Parliament against the Irish or against 



Sl/i ROBERT PEEL. 243 

their religion," as in those days was the fashion ; on the con- 
trary, he spoke of them as a nation in terms of respect and 
kindness. With repression he tried to combine measures of 
improvement, though some of his projects failed. It is true 
that he was nicknamed "Orange Peel ; " but that name he 
seems to have owed less to his Orange proclivities than to 
the irresistible pun. "And," as his brief biographer adds, 
"remember that at this time he was but twenty-four." 

By temperament he was nervous, and in society shy; 
but in the administrative details of business no man could 
compare with him. All public servants who wished to do 
their duty, for a quarter of a century looked up to Peel as 
their leader and chief. He had every quality requisite in a 
man of business, — patience, perseverance, and good judg- 
ment, — besides which he had the gift of public speaking. 

Unhappily he was so identified with the policy of Lord 
Castlereagh, and so pledged to oppose Catholic Emancipa- 
tion, that he would not take office under Mr. Canning. 
His objection to agitation of the question in 1822 was 
based on political grounds, and not on religious animosity. 
The Catholic Relief claim was a question that had either 
divided or destroyed every government in England since 
the beginning of the century. So long as George IH. 
reigned any allusion to the subject brought back his in- 
sanity ; and the royal princes were strenuously opposed to 
the measure, partly basing their dislike to it on regard for 
the feelings of their father, for which, on other matters, 
they showed little concern. After Canning's death in 1827 
the Wellington and Peel Government was formed. Peel 
had already deserved well of his country for using his busi- 
ness talents to bring her safely through a commercial crisis 
which involved perplexing questions of currency. 

To the astonishment and chagrin of the High Tory sup- 
porters of this Cabinet, who beheved Peel and the Duke 
" safe — more than safe " on the question of Catholic 
Emancipation, they took up the measure as having become 
one of political expediency, if not of justice, and carried it 
through in 1829. 



244 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Next came the question of Parliamentary Reform. Peel 
opposed it, and, with the exception of one brief interval, 
was excluded from office for ten years, during which time 
he trained and formed the Conservative Party. Its views 
might be narrow, but its principles were high. Peel led 
the aristocracy of England, but, as we can see in Greville's 
Memoirs, he never was personally a favorite in society. He 
was not genial in manner, and he was essentially a man 
of the middle classes ; but every one acknowledged that he 
was the most able administrator among English statesmen. 

At last Peel's time of power came. He took office in 
1841, with the young Queen thoroughly disliking him; but 
in a few months he had won her confidence, and in a short 
time her love. 

" His government was a thoroughly good government in 
every respect," says a political opponent. " It was trusted 
at home, and respected by foreign nations." But the Irish 
famine in 1845 made necessary a repeal of the Corn Laws. 
Foreign wheat paid heavy duties if admitted into England ; 
the old-fashioned policy having been to make English farm- 
ers produce all breadstuffs eaten by the English population. 
Peel felt that the maintenance of this system was no longer 
possible, and that cheap bread, even with a diminution of the 
farmer's profits, must be furnished to the working-classes. 

Those of the present generation, even in England, can 
have no idea of the rage and horror excited among the 
gentry and farmers throughout Great Britain when Peel and 
the Duke of Wellington proposed a repeal of the Corn 
Laws. It was treachery ; it was duplicity. It would ruin 
every gentleman who owned land in England, and every 
farmer who held his leases. That Peel should have led his 
Conservative Party to this ! That the Duke should betray 
and ruin them ! 

It cannot be denied that the agricultural interest in Eng- 
land has ever since suffered progressively ; but the measure 
had become one that could not be evaded. Some one once 
said, when Peel was being taxed with ingratitude and treach- 
ery to his party, that Moses might as well have been taxed 



SIR ROBERT FEEL. 245 

with ingratitude and treachery by the Israelites for bringing 
them safely through the Red Sea. 

However, the Tories had it in their power to punish him 
for his revolt. The day he carried his measure through the 
House of Commons the High Tories combined with the 
Whig Party against the Conservative Ministry, and by an 
adverse vote upon some petty question overthrew the 
Cabiijet. 

It was then that Prince Albert expressed to Sir Robert 
the hope that his quitting office would not interrupt other 
friendly relations between them ; and Sir Robert replied as 
follows : ^ — 

" I may say, I hope without presumption, — I am sure with 
perfect sincerity, — that cessation of every sort of communica- 
tion with your Royal Highness would be a very severe penalty. 
It was only yesterday that I was separating from the rest of my 
correspondence all the letters which I have received from the 
Queen and your Royal Highness during the long period of five 
years, in order that I might ensure their exemption from the 
fate to which, in these days, all letters (however confidential) 
seem to be destined, and I could not review them without a 
mixed feeling of gratitude for the considerate indulgence and 
kindness, of which they contain such decisive proofs, and of 
regret that such a source of interest and pleasure was dried up. 
I can, in conformity with your Royal Highness' gracious wishes, 
and occasionally, write to you, without saying a word of which 
the most jealous or sensitive successor in the confidence of the 
Queen could complain." ^ 

" Had Peel's government lasted," says Professor Goldwin 
Smith, " it would have taught the nation a wholesome lesson of 
loyalty to a truly national government. His government was, in 

1 There is in the letter a little of that dignified stiffness which 
characterized the letters of Edward Everett, and their beautiful hand- 
writings closely resembled each other. 

^ It was during the Oregon dispute with this country in 1845, that 
my father had several interviews with Sir Robert Peel, and from being 
his political opponent for many years, became his warm admirer. I 
have several of his letters. He had been anxious to see some one 
who could collect for him American views and documents on the 
boundary of Oregon, and my father did his best to put such views and 
documents into his hands. 



246 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

fact, rapidly attaining this national position, when it became 
entangled in the fatal difficulties of the Corn Laws, and fell a 
sacrifice to animosity and intrigue." 

"Sir Robert Peel is to.be buried to-day," writes Prince 
Albert, on July 9, 1850. "The feeling in the country is ab- 
solutely not to be described. We have lost our truest and 
trusted counsellor." And the Queen writes the same day 
to her uncle : " The sorrow and grief at his death are most 
touching. Every one seems to have lost a personal friend." 

He left a will enjoining his family to let his funeral be of 
the simplest kind. He was buried, therefore, in his parish 
church, beside his father and mother. His coffin was borne 
to the grave by workmen from his factories. 

Parliament had greatly desired to give him a public 
funeral in Westminster Abbey ; but as this was precluded 
by his will, all that could be done was to place a monu- 
ment there. Another wish he had expressed was that none 
of his family, on account of his services, should seek, or 
even accept, a Peerage. Before this was known, Lord John 
Russell, then Prime Minister, and his life-long political op- 
ponent, had carried out the wishes of the country by offer- 
ing a Peerage to Lady Peel, with remainder to her sons ; 
but she answered that it was her desire to bear no name but 
that of her husband, besides which his expressed wish had 
been that none of his family, for his sake, should accept 
any distinction or reward. 

A few months more and another death saddened all 
England, yet not as Peel's had done ; for it could not have 
been otherwise than expected. The old Duke — the Duke, 
for few called him otherwise than by that name — was in 
his eighty-fourth year. He had been failing for some time, 
both in body and mind ; yet failure in the latter was per- 
ceptible only to people immediately around him. On great 
occasions he would gather himself up with an effort, and his 
mind would be as clear as ever. He was a man whose life 
motto had been duty, whose supreme thought was how he 
might best serve England, — whether by his life, his death, 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 247 

the sacrifice of his prejudices, or by his popularity. And 
now in the month of September, 1852, on the eve of the 
breaking out of the Crimean War, he lay dying calmly at 
his residence at Walmer Castle, where he lived as Warden 
of the Cinque Ports, near Dover. There Prince Albert had 
paid him a flying visit only a few days before. 

" What the country has lost in him, and what we have 
personally lost," the Prince writes, " it is impossible to esti- 
mate. It is as if in a tissue a particular thread had been 
woven into every pattern." And the Queen writes to King 
Leopold : " He was the pride and good genius as it were 
of this country, the most loyal and devoted subject, and the 
stanchest supporter that the Crown ever had. He was to 
us a true friend and a most valuable adviser. We shall 
soon stand alone ; Peel, Melbourne, Liverpool — now the 
Duke — all gone ! Albert is much grieved. The Duke 
showed him great confidence and affection." 

The Duke, indeed, about eighteen months before his 
death, had been anxious to resign his post as Commander- 
in-Chief in Prince Albert's favor ; but with that rare self- 
effacement that distinguished the Prince, he thought it wise 
to decline such an appointment, writing a letter on the sub- 
ject to the Duke, which I will quote hereafter. Baron 
Stockmar, writing about the Duke's death to the Prince, 
speaks of " his patriotic fidelity which never wavered ; " 
and the Prince, replying, says : " That feature of his charac- 
ter — to set the fulfilment of duty before all other con- 
siderations, and in fulfilling it to fear neither death nor the 
devil — we ought certainly to be able to imitate, if we set 
our minds to the task." 

The Duke died on the 14th of September, but his funeral 
was postponed till Parhament could meet early in Novem- 
ber, and the pubhc funeral be accorded by the people of 
England as well as by the Sovereign. 

This funeral took place November 18, 1852. The 
Duke was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, beside Lord Nel- 
son, — the greatest naval and the greatest military English 
heroes. 



248 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The day was gray and bleak, but more than a million of 
spectators were waiting patiently in the streets to do the hero 
honor. Every nationality sent its representative, except 
Austria. Wellington was a Field-Marshal in the Austrian 
service ; but, in revenge for the beating General Haynau 
had received two years before from the London populace, 
Austria did not choose to honor his remains. The omission 
hurt nobody in England ; but the Queen said to her uncle : 
" There is but one feeling of indignation and surprise at 
the conduct of Austria in taking this opportunity to slight 
England in return for what happened to Haynau on account 
of his own character." 

Count Walewski (son of the great Napoleon by the un- 
happy Polish Countess Walewska) was ambassador in Lon- 
don at this time, and wrote to ask Napoleon II L if he 
wished him to attend the Duke of Wellington's funeral. 
" Certainly," was the reply. " I wish we may forget the 
past. I have every reason to be grateful for the friendly 
terms in which the Duke spoke of me ; and I wish to con- 
tinue on the most friendly terms with England." 

The presence of the French ambassador was felt by all 
Englishmen to be a great and touching tribute to the 
memory of their hero and statesman. 

The procession was magnificent. The tributes of respect 
and personal grief were very touching. The crowd showed 
deep feeling and respect ; not a sound, as the cortege passed, 
was heard, 

" Honor, my Lords," said Lord Derby, in the House of 
Peers, "all honor to the people who so well knew how to 
reverence the illustrious dead. Honor to the friendly visitors, 
— especially to France, that great and friendly nation, — that 
testified, by their representatives, their respect and veneration 
for his memory ! The French people regarded him as a foe 
worthy of their steel. His object was not fame or glory, but a 
lasting peace. We have buried, in our greatest hero, the man 
among us who had the greatest horror of war." 

We all know the Duke's answer to the lady who said 
to him, " Oh, how splendid it must be to see a vie- 



BARON STOCKMAR. 249 

tor}' ! " — " Madam, I know nothing more horrible except 
a defeat ! " 

"When Lord John Russell visited Napoleon in Elba, in 
1813," says Justin McCarthy, "the Emperor asked him whether 
he thought the Duke of Wellington would be able to live 
thenceforward without the excitement of war ? It was probably 
in Napoleon's mind that the EngHsh soldier would be con- 
stantly entangling England in foreign complications for the 
sake of gratifying his love for the 'brave squares of war.' Lord 
John endeavored to impress on the great fallen Emperor that 
the Duke of Wellington would, as a matter of course, lapse into 
the place of a simple citizen, and would look with no manner 
of regret to the stormy days of battle. Napoleon seems to have 
listened with a sort of incredulity, and only observed once or 
twice that 'it was a splendid game — was war.' ' 

To Wellington it was no " splendid game," — no game 
of any sort. It was a stern duty, to be done for his sove- 
reign and his country, and to be got through as quickly 
as possible. The difference between the two men cannot 
be better illustrated. 

Tennyson, as poet laureate, wrote one of his grand odes 
on so national an event as the Duke of Wellington's 
funeral ; but Longfellow's '' Warden of the Cinque Ports " 
stirs our hearts, I think, with more sympathetic emotion. 

Before I conclude this chapter, I should like to say a 
few words about Baron Stockmar, whose name has so fre- 
quently occurred in it and in former chapters. 

Christian Frederick Stockmar was born at Coburg in 
1787. He was a physician by profession, and, as such, 
came to the notice of Prince Leopold, who, when he went 
over to England to be married in 181 6, offered him the 
post of his private physician. Private physicians were, 
in those days, frequently the counsellors of princes and 
kings. 

Stockmar was part of the Prince's household during his 
eighteen months of married life. It was he who had to 
announce to him poor Princess Charlotte's death ; and 



250 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

it was at that moment, kneeling by his dead wife's bedside, 
in utter forlornness, that Leopold obtained a promise from 
Stockmar never to leave him. From that day forth, Stock- 
mar's life was consecrated to Leopold, — to him and to 
his. In the negotiations respecting the crowns of Greece 
and Belgium, he was his friend's confidential adviser. The 
business of his life was to see and reflect, consider and 
advise. 

In 1837, the year that Queen Victoria ascended the 
throne, Stockmar was intrusted by King Leopold with 
the most delicate mission possible. He was to go to Eng- 
land, and act as an unseen monitor to the Queen, King 
Leopold's niece, in whom he took a double interest, from 
the fact that in her seemed to revive her cousin Charlotte, 
and that the man whom she might marry would be the 
inheritor of his early dreams. 

Stockmar unweariedly concentrated all his efforts on in- 
stilling into the mind of the youthful Queen the principles of 
absolute constitutional impartiality ; the necessity that the 
sovereign of England should not become personally identi- 
fied with either of the two parties whose leaders might be 
called into her service. At the same time he was to keep 
her in mind of the suit of her cousin Albert, whose edu- 
cation Uncle Leopold had been directing with a view to 
the position he would occupy if she gave him her hand. 

Stockmar had no ostensible employment in the royal 
household after the marriage of his protege's, or did he ever 
acquire wealth, or touch one penny of English money, but 
he went in and out amongst them as one of themselves, dis- 
pensed even from wearing court dress, consulted about 
everything, — from the management of the nursery and the 
health of the children to the highest affairs of State. One 
of the ministers called him " a second father " to the Prince 
and Queen. He was indeed Uncle Leopold by proxy. 

He had no scruple in scolding the Prince, and lecturing 
him at somewhat tedious length ; and Prince Albert took it 
all, as few sons would take admonitions from their fathers, 
especially as there were times (notably relating to German 



BARON STOCKMAR. 25 I 

politics) when the royal patrons he lectured with calm 
superiority were right, and he was wrong. 

" He was," says a writer of contemporary memoirs, " an active, 
decided, slender, rather little man, with a compact head, brown 
hair streaked with gray, a bold short nose, firm yet full mouth ; 
and what gave a peculiar air of animation to his face were two 
youthful, flashing brown eyes, full of roguish intelligence and 
fiery provocation. With this exterior the style of his demeanor 
and conversation corresponded, — bold, bright, pungent, eager, 
full of thought, — so that amid all the babbhng copiousness and 
easy vivacity of his talk a certain purpose in his remarks and 
illustrations was never lost sight of." 

In 1857 he took his farewell of the English court, where 
he had lived for twenty years, " the beloved and trusted 
friend," writes the Queen, " of all beneath our roof, down 
to the humblest member of our household." In vain did 
the letters of the Queen and Prince implore him to return 
to them, — 

" Come back, come back, they cried with grief, " 

but Stockmar adhered to his resolution. Writing to King 
Leopold to resign the trust he had filled for twenty years 
with rare unselfishness, he says : — 

" This year I shall be seventy, and I am no longer, either 
physically or mentally, equal to the laborious and exhausting 
functions of a paternal friend and experienced father confessor. 
I must say good-bye ; and this time forever. The law of nature 
will have it so ; and well for me that I can do this with a clear 
conscience, for I have worked as long as I had power to work, 
for ends that cannot be impugned. The consciousness of this 
is alone the reward which I vv^as anxious to deserve ; and my dear 
master and friend gives me frankly and spontaneously, from the 
bottom of his heart, the testimony that I have deserved it." 

Stockmar died two years after the Prince he had trained 
for his life work, and whom he loved "so fatherly." The 
Prince Consort, only a month before he died, had written : 
" I am terribly in want of a friend and counsellor, and that 
you are that friend you can understand." 



252 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

It is sad to think that for the five years Stockmar lived 
after his retirement he was not happy. Possibly, the strain 
upon his faculties being taken oif, he was left open to 
attacks of depression ; but such moods were only the pass- 
ing clouds that obscured the brightness and trustfulness of 
his serene and hopeful nature. " Some people thought him 
cold. They did not know his loving nature, his sweet tem- 
per, his self-devoting unselfishness, his consecration to the 
service of his friends. The hearts of all could safely trust 
in him, and all who came in contact with him felt it to 
be so." 

He said in his old age : — 

" If any young man were to ask me, ' What is the chief good 
for which it behoves man to try ? ' I would say, ' Love and 
Friendship.' If he asked, ' What is man's best possession ? ' I 
must answer, 'The consciousness of having loved and sought 
the truth, of having yearned after what is good for its own sake.' " 

He said of himself : — 

"The singularity of my position required me anxiously to 
efface myself, and to conceal, as though it were a crime, the best 
purposes I had in view, and frequently carried out. Like a thief 
in the night, I placed with liberal hand the seed within the earth, 
and when the plant grew up, and became visible to other people, 
it was my duty to ascribe the merit to others, and no other course 
was open to me." 

This lesson of self-effacement he impressed upon his 
pupil. This is how Prince Albert speaks of his own 
position in England, in a letter he wrote to the Duke 
of Wellington, refusing his offer to resign to him the posi- 
tion of British Commander-in-Chief. It seems an echo 
of Stockmar : — 

" The husband of a female sovereign should entirely sink his 
own individual existence in that of his wife : he should aim 
at no power by himself or for himself ; should shun all con- 
tention ; assume no separate responsibility before the public ; 
but make his position entirely a part of hers, — fill up every 
gap which, as a woman, she would naturally leave, in the exer- 



BARON STOCKMAR. ;253 

cise of her royal functions ; continually and anxiously watch 
every part of the public business, in order to be able to advise 
and assist her at any moment in any of the multifarious difficult 
questions or duties brought before her, sometimes international, 
sometimes political, social, or personal. As the natural head of 
her family, superintendent of her household, manager of her 
private affairs, sole confidential adviser in politics, and only 
assistant in her communications with the officers of the Govern- 
ment, he is, besides the husband of the Queen, the tutor of the 
royal children, the private secretary of the Sovereign, and her 
permanent minister." 

If any man ever carried out his theories in his life-work, 
it was Prince Albert, — the Prince Consort. And when 
we think of his life, and mourn over his early death, it is 
not alone for the widowed Queen we feel regret, but for 
his adopted country. '' Albert the Good " she calls him 
now, after having subjected him to many mistrusts and 
humiliations during his lifetime. As one thinks of his 
career, one cannot but remember that saying of Him 
"who took upon Him the form of a servant": "He that 
is chief is he that doth serve." 



CHAPTER X. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 



T T was when the most sagacious of English statesmen and 
■^ the greatest military commander of England had 
recently died that a little cloud rose out of the East, and, 
before long, overspread all Europe, darkening the earth 
with a furious storm. England, which for forty years 
had enjoyed peace, plunged recklessly and almost joy- 
ously into a dangerous and distant war. 

I have told the story of the Crimean campaigns in two 
long chapters in " Russia and Turkey in the Nineteenth 
Century." I therefore shall not repeat it here.^ 

Lord Aberdeen was, when the war broke out, the Queen's 
Prime Minister. Lord Palmerston was in the Home Office. 
Lord John Russell had given place to Lord Clarendon, who 
was at the head of Foreign Affairs. 

The war was intensely popular in England. It seemed 
to many to renew the nation's youth ; to burnish up 
men's patriotism ; to add another page to the traditions of 
their fathers. The French were not equally enthusiastic. 
The war was not with them a national movement. They 
entered into it as part of their Emperor's policy. But 
in England, Lord Palmerston, boyish, prejudiced, and 
impulsive, led English sentiment on the occasion; and, 
although he was no longer at the Foreign Office, may be 
said to have inspired its pohcy, if he did not conduct 
its affairs. He thought that English interests demanded 

■ 1 Other very interesting episodes in English history during the 
last half-century have had to be omitted in this volume, but I hope to 
continue this series with another volume entitled "Europe in Africa 
during the Nineteenth Century." — Author. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 255 

that a check sliould be put on the aggressiveness of 
Russia; he was the friend of Turks, but he detested 
Greeks and Russians. His sympathies were all upon 
one side, and the populace gave him their voices. He 
treated all stories of the oppression of Christian popu- 
lations in Turkey as humbug, — false rumors raised by 
Russia to support her claims. 

The English nation was carried off its feet on a great 
wave of enthusiasm. From the day when it opened the 
doors of its Temple of Janus, on February 21, 1854, when 
the British ambassador left St. Petersburg (and his depar- 
ture was followed a month later by a declaration of war), 
there has scarcely been a period of even a few morths when 
England has not had some fighting on her hands. Many 
of her contests have been " little wars " in Africa ; but the 
one most memorable, most terrible, is the subject of this 
and the succeeding chapter, — the Indian or, more prop- 
erly, the Poorbeah Mutiny ; for it happily never spread over 
all India, and did not extend to the Presidencies of Madras 
and Bombay. 

I shared, in 1840 and 1841, in the excitement produced 
in England by Macaulay's articles on Warren Hastings and 
Lord Clive in the " Edinburgh Review." All who have 
read those articles know that the British East India Com- 
pany was chartered in the time of Queen Elizabeth ; that 
in 1634 it obtained certain treaty rights from the Mogul 
which enabled it to establish a trading-post, or " factory," 
on the Hoogly in Bengal, where, a few years later, it built 
Fort William, called after William III. We know also the 
story of Soorajah Dowla and the Black Hole of Calcutta, 
where one hundred and forty-six Europeans were confined 
during a hot summer night, and only twenty-three sur- 
vived till morning. After this, the British Company, for its 
own security, found it necessary to extend its territory in 
India ; each acquisition led on to another, and bit by bit 
the mighty empire grew. 

We all know the triangle presented on the map by the 
peninsula of Hindoostan. The southern part of that penin- 



256 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

sula is the Presidency of Madras, the western side the 
Presidency of Bombay, while the Presidency of Bengal may 
be loosely said to occupy the centre and northeast of the 
peninsula. Through it flow the Ganges and the Jumna; 
it includes what were once the dominions of the Great 
Mogul. Its chief city is Calcutta, but the great cities of 
Delhi, Benares, and Agra are in it, too ; there, also, is 
Cawnpore, so famous in the Mutiny. 

The Mutiny was confined to Bengal and to the recently 
annexed kingdom of Oude, on the left bank of the Ganges. 
Happily, it was not joined by the recently acquired prov- 
inces of the Punjaub, conquered by the EngHsh barely ten 
years before. All the chiefs of the Punjaub remained 
faithful to the English, and nearly all the Sikh Sepoys ; 
and the best help the British had in their extremity was 
from regiments raised in the Punjaub, in which their former 
gallant foes, the Sikhs, fought on their side. 

Since the Mutiny the charter of the East India Company 
has been revoked. The Queen is Empress of India. But 
it may be useful to give a brief sketch of the Company 
before its sovereignty passed away. 

The government of British India was divided between 
two authorities, — the one controlling, the other executive. 
The controlling power was in England, and consisted of 
the King's Government and the Directors of the East India 
Company in Leadenhall Street. These Directors were 
twenty-four in number, chosen from the stockholders ; and 
with them lay all appointments except those of the Gover- 
nor-General (who was supreme head over the three Presi- 
dencies) and Commander-in-Chief. The Company had its 
own fleet of Indiamen, well armed, and its officers were all 
uniformed ; it had also its own army, both of Europeans 
and Native troops, the latter called Sepoys. They were 
officered by Englishmen, and Englishmen administered the 
criminal and revenue laws. 

The population of British India at the time of the Mutiny 
was estimated at nearly two hundred millions, of whom 
about one in ten were Mohammedans. The Sepoy force 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 257 

was composed both of Hindoos and Mohammedans, — the 
Hindoos in the army of Bengal being ahnost exclusively of 
high caste, either soldiers by race, or Brahmins. Caste is 
far dearer to a Hindoo than his religion. Of religious doc- 
trine he makes small account, but death is to be preferred 
to loss of caste ; and, unhappily, caste may be lost in so 
many ways that he has to be careful about everything.^ 

The state of Hindoostan, when the English planted their 
empire there, might be compared in some respects to that 
of England a century after the Norman Conquest, — the 
Normans being represented by the Mohammedans, the Sax- 
ons by the Hindoos. The Saxons and Normans, however, 
intermarried, and were of the same religion, which Hindoos 
and Mohammedans were not. So far from supplanting 
the ancient and legitimate rulers of India, it is matter of 
history that no such powers existed when the English rule 
began. 

From the tenth to the twelfth century the Mohammedans 
were robbers and spoilers, overrunning India from the 
North. About 1200, a Mohammedan kingdom was set up 
at Delhi, under Afghan rulers, whose dominion was charac- 
terized by blood and flame. At last came Tamerlane, who 
in 1398 killed one hundred thousand Hindoo prisoners in 
cold blood under the walls of Delhi, and gave the city up 
to massacre and pillage. Then for three hundred years 
there was a kind of general anarchy in India, till Aurung- 
zebe estabhshed himself in Delhi about the same time that 
the English built Fort William at Calcutta. He was a great 
man and a very interesting one ; but the chief object of 
his life was to put down Hindoo idolatry and to persecute 
its followers. Aurungzebe was the Great Mogul. He not 

^ An anecdote is told of an English gentleman recently arrived in 
India, who, going up the Ganges, beheld an aged native lying ex- 
hausted on the bank. He lifted him up and poured down his throat 
some eau de cologne, the only alcoholic stimulant he had at hand. 
The man revived. But by partaking of anything from the hand of an 
infidel he had lost caste, and thenceforward the unhappy Englishman, 
wherever he might be, was solemnly cursed by him several times a 
week, because by his means he had lost caste against his will. 

17 



258 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

only governed his own empire', but was suzerain of a good 
many princes round him, — among others the Prince who 
governed Oude, beyond the Ganges. When Aurungzebe 
died, in 1707, his empire relapsed into anarchy. The 
Persian Shah invaded it, and sacked Delhi ; then came an 
invasion of the Afghans. After them came the Mahrattas, 
robbers from the hills, who for twenty years spread terror 
throughout Central India, till they were put down by the 
Duke of Wellington in the early part of his career. Up to 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Company's 
territories had been acquired, — ( i ) From the Nabob of 
Bengal, a revolted feudatory of the Great Mogul; (2) By 
opposing the French in the Carnatic ; (3) By putting down 
the tyrant, Tippoo Sahib. 

In 1846 the English acquired the Punjaub. When a 
petty ruler was dispossessed, he was pensioned handsomely, 
as well as his family ; or sometimes British residents were 
sent to the courts of Native princes to keep their affairs in 
good order. 

The English Government was scrupulously careful not to 
interfere with the idolatry of the Hindoos ; indeed, they 
were accused of patronizing it. "I never shall forget," says 
an English officer, "the first time I attended Holy Commu- 
nion in India, when the words of the service were drowned 
in the roar of great guns from the Fort in honor of some 
idol ceremonial." 

The only time any dispute arose with the Government 
about caste was when some Sepoy troops were ordered to 
embark for Burmah, and they declined to sail upon the 
sea, because on board ship they might not be able to keep 
up the ablutions and other ceremonies required by their 
rehgion. There had also been some feeling when the 
British Government endeavored to put down Suttee, and 
crushed Thuggee. This last was a most strange institution. 
The Thugs claimed to be inspired to kill any one whom it 
was put into their hearts to kill ; and sixty years ago Thuggee 
raged in Northern India. 

The Native cavalry was more Mohammedan than Hindoo ; 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 259 

the Native infantry was in the proportion of ten Hindoos to 
one Mohammedan. Each regiment also contained a few 
Sikhs. 

At the opening of 1857, the year of the Mutiny, the 
Native army in the Bengal Presidency consisted of eleven 
regiments of light cavalry, seventy -four of infantry, five 
troops of artillery, twenty-three regiments of irregular cav- 
alry, seven battalions of Sikh infantry, and about twenty 
other corps belonging to Native rulers. 

The Company had also three brigades of European 
horse, six battalions of foot-artillery, and six regiments of 
European infantry. 

The Queen's troops were two regiments of cavalry, and 
thirteen of foot. The space guarded by this force was 
about equal to France, Austria, and Germany. 

Of all the Native regiments in Bengal, one only (the 
Thirteenth) was found perfectly faithful. 

The Sepoys had always been well treated by the English ; 
for one hundred years they had done faithful service ; they 
were supposed to be greatly attached to their English 
officers. Their pay was higher than they could get in any 
other employment. Their families were understood to be 
under the protection of the British Government ; and when 
their terms of service ended, they were pensioned, so as to 
be made comfortable in their old age. 

Up to 1857 the Sepoys had absolutely no grievances to 
complain of. But there was some discontent among rich 
landowners, and three dispossessed princes, or princes 
under the tutelage of English Residents, were ready enough 
to take part in any movement which might open prospects 
to them of re-acquiring their old liberty of misgovernment 
and rapine. These three princes were, the representative 
of the Great Mogul at Delhi, the Ex- King of Oude, and 
the ever-infamous Nana Sahib. All other chiefs and princes 
of any consequence in India remained faithful to the 
English, though their armies, in most instances, joined the 
revolt. 

The Great Mogul at Delhi was grandson of a man rescued 



260 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

by the British from a revolted Vizier. He, however, turned 
against his benefactors, and joined the Mahrattas, was taken 
prisoner by Scindia, a gallant Native chief, and had his eyes 
gouged out by one of his jailers in a fit of passion. When 
the British took Delhi from Scindia, this blind unfortunate 
was restored to his throne. " His palace at Delhi is second 
only," says Bishop Heber, " to Windsor Castle ; " and his 
allowance was ;j^i 20,000 a year (more than half a million 
of dollars) . He died at the age of eighty-six, and his son 
succeeded him. 

Delhi is a very sacred city. The Great Mogul considered 
himself a very king of kings ; and the predecessor of the 
King of Delhi in 1857 was once excessively insulted by an 
English Governor-General of India taking a seat in his 
presence. 

The English regulation that all debts must be paid was 
considered an unpardonable insult by the reigning poten- 
tate. The poor relations in his family had been guaranteed 
a living by the English Government. The English yearly 
paid money for them to the monarch at Delhi, who kept 
it for himself; and at last the dependants complained. 
This was the crowning indignity, which caused Mohammed 
Badahen to give his support to the Sepoy Mutiny. 

At the close of 1856 the Government of India determined 
to arm its troops with Enfield rifles. The arms were sent 
out from England, and cartridges to fit them. These car- 
tridges, unhappily, being wrapped in tougher paper than 
former cartridges, had their paper greased ; and it is highly 
probable that lard and tallow entered into the composition 
used for that purpose. The men were required to bite off 
the end of each cartridge before putting it into the gun. 
The first mutterings of mutiny were heard in January, 
1857, at Dum-Dum, a station near Calcutta. There a 
man of low caste, having asked a soldier of high caste 
for a draught of water, and having been refused roughly, 
shouted in his anger : " You will soon loose your caste ! 
You will have to bite cartridges covered with the fat of 
pigs and cows ! " 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 26 1 

This speech excited all the soldiers in the station ; and 
soon it was reported and believed that the new cartridges 
were a trick of the British Government to make them all 
lose caste, and then forcibly convert them to Christianity. 

The native non-commissioned officers waited on the 
commandant. They were assured that the cartridges were 
greased with mutton fat and wax. They answered that 
this might be so, but that a report to the contrary had 
spread throughout India, and that if they touched that 
grease their friends would not believe the explanation, and 
would refuse to eat with them. 

Orders were then issued to allow the Sepoys to get 
what grease they pleased in the bazaar, and grease their 
own cartridges. This did not, however, mend the matter. 
The paper that wrapped the cartridges was more highly 
glazed than the old-fashioned cartridge-paper, and it was 
reported that the terrible grease had been em.ployed to 
glaze it. The General in vain harangued his brigade on 
the absurdity of supposing that the Government wished 
to make them Christians by a trick, when they would not 
be admitted to that religion without a full and intelligent 
conviction of the truths contained in " the Book." His 
speech was without effect. The spirit of mutiny was in the 
regiment, and it was disbanded. 

At Meerut, a military station within a few hours' march 
from Delhi, there were three native regiments and some 
European troops posted for rifle instruction. The same 
difficulty occurred there about the cartridges. 

Whether the men were called upon to bite the cartridges, 
or whether they were only afraid that they would be called 
upon to do so, does not appear. One account says that 
not a single one of the objectionable cartridges was ever 
issued to a Native soldier, and they were, soon after, all 
destroyed in presence of the Native regiments. At alb 
events, prejudice against pig's fat was almost as strongk 
amongst Mohammedans as that against beef fat wag 
amongst Hindoos. The soldiers at Meerut broke into 
open mutiny. Eighty were tried, and condemned to ten 



/ 



262 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

years' imprisonment, with hard labor. This sentence was 
read to the whole force, May 9, 1857. The prisoners, 
stripped of their uniforms, were fettered, and marched from 
the parade-ground to the common jail, which contained 
about two thousand malefactors. 

No especial precautions were taken for the safety of the 
station. The next day was Sunday. The European troops 
had been to church, had had their dinners, and were 
quietly sauntering about their lines. The officers and the 
ladies were preparing to go to evening service. The chap- 
lain was driving there in his buggy. All was as it had been 
every Sunday, in every station in India, for years past, — 
when suddenly there opened the first act of the terrible 
tragedy of the Great Mutiny. 

The men of the Third Light Native Cavalry rushed from 
their tents and mounted their horses. A party galloped to 
the jail, overpowered the guard, and liberated the prisoners. 
Then, calling on all the other Sepoys to join them, they 
commenced an indiscriminate attack on all Europeans. 
Officers, women, and children were butchered and muti- 
lated, and their houses set on fire. When the Sepoys and 
the wretches released from jail had finished their work, 
they marched off" to Delhi, while the English troops in the 
cantonments, utterly taken by surprise, did not recover 
from it in time to attack them. General Anson was com- 
mander at the station, and seems to have been paralyzed 
by surprise. 

Pushing forward, the mutineers reached Delhi the next 
day. The English there had received news of their com- 
ing, and were preparing to remove their women and 
children. But it was too late. The advanced guard of 
the mutineers rode fearlessly through the principal gate of 
the city. Every European that could be found was slaugh- 
tered, and ;^5 00,000 of Government treasure was seized. 
The chaplain, Mr. Jennings,^ and his young daughter. Miss 

1 Twenty-five years before, in large round childish hand, I had 
signed the parish register as witness to the marriage of Mr. Jen- 
nings with Maria, daughter of Admiral Daniel. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 263 

Annie Jennings, were among the victims. Thank God 
that the horrors of their deaths as reported in the news 
that first reached England were exaggerated ! But for 
many months all India, and all England, believed them. 
In that wonderful piece of narrative writing, which is not 
fiction but simple fact, " Eight Days," may be found an 
entirely reliable account of those events at Delhi. Names 
only are changed. The author is the son of one of the 
heroic Nine who, with Lieutenant Wiiloughby, blew up the 
arsenal, and themselves with it, lest the mutineers should 
get possession of the ammunition. All the terrible incidents 
of the narrative are true. Mr. Frazer, the British Resident, 
was among the first slaughtered. There was a current 
belief in Delhi that the English dominion in India could 
last only a century from Clive's battle of Plassey. As the 
Mutiny spread, all the Sepoys in that part of India marched 
from every point to Delhi. The old Emperor was hailed 
as representative of the Great Mogul, and became the rival 
power to the English Company. Confidence in the Com- 
pany's good fortune was at an end. 

Soon all Bengal was in a flame, with the imperial city for 
the focus of the insurrection and its stronghold. Calcutta 
was barely kept down. The authorities there refused to 
believe in the disaffection of the Sepoys. They authorized 
the withdrawal of the objectionable cartridges, but they did 
not disarm the Sepoy regiments. All through the earlier 
stages of the Mutiny the officers of the Native regiments 
always insisted that their own men were stanch. Many had 
served with their men for twenty years, through toil and 
danger, and believed them true till the last moment ; indeed 
in many instances officers persisted in trusting their own 
Sepoys till the murderous shot was fired and they fell dead. 

It was remarked that the infantry regiments, composed 
principally of Hindoo Sepoys, commonly murdered their 
officers, while the cavalry regiments, where the majority 
of the men were Mohammedans, usually ordered their 
officers away, and forbore otherwise to maltreat them. It 
is also remarkable that the native princes, except the three 



264 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

already named, were faithful to the English ; and, most 
remarkable of all, that the Punjaub, occupied by the warlike 
Sikhs, a province conquered only nine years before by the 
English, remained true to them. Regiments of Punjaubees 
and Sikhs were raised in the service of the English, and the 
chiefs of the Sikh tribes were their stanchest friends. But 
the Company had Lord Lawrence (Sir John Lawrence then) 
as Governor in the Punjaub. He it was that saved India for 
the English. Dean Merivale used to say, with a laugh, that 
that credit was due to himself, notwithstanding his profession, 
and although he had never been in India, for that when he 
and Lawrence were both youths, the civil appointment 
that Lawrence got had been offered to him first, and he 
declined it. 

There were five Lawrences, and all went to India. All 
distinguished themselves there. Three were soldiers, viz., 
Alexander, a general in Bombay ; Sir Henry, the defender 
of Lucknow ; and Sir George St. Patrick, who was one of 
Akbar Khan's captives, and who, during the Mutiny, kept 
faithful the hill-tribes in Rajahpootra, the district in which 
he was in command. John was a civilian, and bitterly did 
he chafe at not being a soldier. Their father had been an 
old Indian officer. Their mother was left in Scotland a 
widow with her large family of boys. They all went to 
school to an uncle who was a schoolmaster at London- 
derry, in Ireland. Henry and John had had for their school- 
fellow a boy named Montgomery, who also went to India. 

When the Punjaub had been conquered by the English, 
its government was placed in the hands of three commission- 
ers \ these chanced to be the three old schoolmates. One 
night as they were sitting together they began to talk of 
old school-days, and of two ushers, twin brothers, named 
Simpson, who had been kind to them. " I '11 tell you what 
we '11 do," said Henry Lawrence. " The Simpsons must be 
very old now, and I dare say nearly blind : let us each send 
them ;^50 to-morrow as a Christmas gift, with, the good 
wishes of three of their old pupils, now members of the 
Punjaub Board of Administration at Lahore." Months 




S//^ JOHN LA WRENCE. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 26$ 

after came a letter, beginning, " My dear, kind boys," 
saying that their generous gift would make the declining 
years of the writer and his brother comfortable, and that 
it was precious to have been thought of by pupils who had 
attained what seemed to be a high position. He had got 
out the old school atlas, but he could not find the Punjaub, 
and he could not find Lahore ; and neither he nor his 
brother knew what a Board of Administration meant, but 
they felt certain it was something that gave their dear boys 
great importance. 

Could they have discovered the Punjaub on their map, 
they would have found it to be a small triangle, with its 
base stuck on to the northwest corner of the great triangle 
of India. The Sutlej is its southern boundary, the Indus 
flows through it, and it separates Hindoostan from Beloo- 
chistan and Afghanistan. 

Over this great and difificult possession the two Lawrences 
and Montgomery were appointed to rule. Unhappily, the 
views of the two brothers did not agree. Those of John, 
the younger, were approved by Lord Dalhousie, the Gover- 
nor-General. He was made sole head of the Government in 
the Punjaub, and Henry was placed over another province. 

There were sad hearts on the day in January, 1853, when 
Henry Lawrence left Lahore. A long cavalcade of aged 
native chiefs followed him, some for five miles, some for 
twenty- five, besides Europeans. The last man to leave 
him was Robert Napier, afterwards Lord Napier of Mag- 
dala. " Kiss him," said Henry Lawrence to his sister, as 
Napier turned sadly away; " kiss him, — he is my best and 
dearest friend." 

The Lawrence brothers still loved each other, but their 
fraternal relations after this separation were never quite the 
same. All who knew Henry, loved him ; all who knew 
John, honored him. In John's later life his brotherly 
resemblance to Henry strengthened with his years. 

Thus John Lawrence, in 1857, was supreme ruler of 
the Punjaub. He was absent from Lahore on a visit to 
the Hills when the terrible telegram came from Delhi .• 



266 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" The Sepoys have come in from Meerut, and aie burning 
everything. Mr. Todd is dead, and, we hear, several Euro- 
peans. We must shut up. ..." Let us hope that this 
poor telegraph operator escaped the fate Of his superior. 

From the first, John Lawrence saw that the main point 
was the capture of Delhi. He believed in the fidelity of 
his own province, but was not willing to trust the Sepoys. 
He disarmed every Sepoy regiment in the Punjaub, but he 
sent down Europeans, Punjaubees, and Sikhs, to aid in the 
capture of Delhi. 

The way Sepoy regiments were disarmed was this. When 
a regiment was found to be disaffected, if the governor of 
the province, or commandant of the town, was a man of 
energy, he managed to assemble the regiment upon its 
parade-ground, and so manoeuvred as to have European 
troops and loaded cannon fronting them. Then they were 
ordered to pile their arms, and in every instance did so. 
Of course the disbanding of a regiment was a great hard- 
ship to any of the men who might be loyal. They lost all 
their pensions and privileges for past services. In some 
cases in the Punjaub, mutinous disbanded Sepoys fell into 
the hands of Punjaubee villagers, who hated Hindoos, and 
who either destroyed them themselves, or gave them up to 
the English as prisoners. 

John Lawrence next proceeded to put all the resources 
of his province at the disposal of the officers conducting the 
siege of Delhi. He drained the Punjaub of its best offi- 
cers and its most trustworthy troops ; and by enlisting 
Punjaubees, he converted those who might have been dis- 
affected into aids to the English, and committed them to 
the English cause. From the Punjaub arsenals siege-trains 
were equipped ; from the Punjaub districts vast numbers of 
carts and carriages were gathered, and despatched system- 
atically with their loads to Delhi ; from Punjaub treasuries 
the sinews of war were furnished. 

Men were raised by tens of thousands to replace the 
Sepoys, — raised, indeed, in such numbers that John Law- 
rence always had a fear upon his heart that a new danger 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 267 

might arise from the Punjaubees becoming conscious of 
their own power. 

While John Lawrence was thus ruUng in the Punjaub, 
his brother, George St. Patrick Lawrence, was ruhng in 
Rajahpootra, — a country consisting of eighteen small Native 
states, seventeen of which were Hindoo, and one Moham- 
medan. Rajahpootra had been under the rule of the Eng- 
lish about forty years, and had been during that time 
recovering from the ravages of the Mahratta freebooters. 
Everything was going on satisfactorily and serenely, when, 
on the 19th of May, arrived news of the outbreak at Meerut 
and the massacre at Delhi. At once Sir George Lawrence 
saw that the whole Native army was contaminated. He 
ruled over about ten millions of men, had about five thou- 
sand Sepoys in his province, and seventy European soldiers, 
with twenty-five to thirty British officers and officials. 

There was a great arsenal in Rajahpootra. The troops 
that had it in charge were Sepoys of high caste. There 
was also a regiment in the province composed of low-caste 
men. These had no sympathy with the high-caste Sepoys, 
and were believed, justly, to be true to British rule. By 
forced marches they were moved suddenly upon the arsenal, 
and put into possession of the place. Had it fallen into the 
hands of the mutineers, with all the ammunition it con- 
tained, Rajahpootra would have been lost. 

All over the country the Sepoys always protested their 
fidelity to the last mbment, and very often gave striking 
proofs of it till the moment came for their outbreak. That 
outbreak was generally preceded by a fire in the canton- 
ments or the officers' bungalows. Then, in the confusion, 
came the mutiny, with more or less murdering of Europeans, 
and then the revolted troops marched for Delhi or Agra. 
Some regiments in Rajahpootra revolted ; but the Native 
chiefs, from various motives, remained true, though it was 
beyond their power to control their Native soldiers. George 
Lawrence had acted very differently from those who deemed 
it the best policy to keep up a show of confidence in the 
Sepoys till they broke into revolt. His policy saved British 



268 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

interests, without imperilling a single life ; the other policy 
saved British interests, but shed a sea of blood. 

We all know how the Ganges flows into the Bay of Ben- 
gal below Calcutta, and that below Calcutta its principal 
branch is called the Hoogly. On the eastern, or left, bank of 
the Ganges lies the kingdom of Oude. About a thousand 
miles up the Ganges, on the right bank of the river (the 
shore of Oude being on the left bank) , is the English mili- 
tary station of Cawnpore, — familiar in my young days to 
all those who read the works of Mrs. Sherwood, or the 
Memoirs of Henry Martyn. This place at the time of the 
Mutiny had an unusually small European garrison ; but it 
was full of Europeans, many of them young English civil 
engineers, and there were also many women and children. 
The general in command was Sir Hugh Wheeler. 

Before, however, telling the disastrous history of Cawn- 
pore, or that of the kingdom of Oude, let me give a speci- 
men story of what, during those months of May, June, and 
July, 1857, was taking place all over Bengal. I chose this 
particular narrative because on it, I think, was founded 
that admirable Mutiny story which, twenty years after the 
Mutiny, appeared in " Blackwood," called the " Dilemma." ^ 

The incidents I am to tell took place in the little walled 
town of Arah, upon which a force of mutinous Sepoys from 
Dinapore marched, on July 26, 1857, to massacre the resi- 
dents and plunder the treasure. The plundering of the 
treasury and the opening of the jail came always first in 
each outbreak of the Mutiny. 

Having reached Arah, broken open the treasury, and 
released all prisoners, the mutineers proceeded to slaughter 
the Europeans. But here they were foiled. All the Euro- 
pean men in the place were civilians. They shut themselves 
up in one of two houses in a compound, which they fortified 
so as to resist any sudden assault. Mr. Boyle, the chief 
man in the place, had for some weeks been laying in stores. 
Ammunition was collected, loopholes were pierced in the 
walls, and sandbags were placed on the roof. There were 

i A total misnomer, because in it there is no dilemma at all. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 269 

fifteen Europeans and half-castes (or Eurasians) in Arab, 
a Mohammedan gentleman who joined his fate to theirs, 
and fifty Sikh soldiers. The united garrison was thus 
sixty-six souls. 

The Sepoys were greatly amazed when they found them- 
selves checked by the defenders of one small house. They 
attacked it, and were entirely discomfited. Then they 
tried to corrupt the Sikhs, but the Sikhs stood firm. Next 
they brought up cannon, and their grapeshot riddled the 
walls of the house, but did not lessen the courage of the 
garrison. 

Three days the cannonade continued. On the third day 
a force was sent from Dinapore for their relief; but, alas ! 
it was intercepted and defeated. Only one man of the 
relief party reached the beleaguered garrison, and brought 
the terrible neAvs. 

In Dinapore, when the repulse of the relieving force was 
known, the little garrison were given up for lost. But the 
garrison themselves did not utterly despair. They knew 
that detachments of English troops were being sent up the 
country. They hoped that one would pause upon its march, 
and come and help them. Nor were they deceived. Major 
Vincent Eyre (who wrote for us a narrative of the Cabul 
massacre) arrived off Dinapore with a body of troops, on 
his way to the siege of Delhi, from Calcutta. He met the 
broken and defeated troops who had failed to relieve Arah. 
He at once proposed to disregard his orders, and go to the 
help of the brave garrison. Just as they were in the last 
extremity, he drove off the Sepoys and delivered them. 
Then he marched on and destroyed the stronghold of the 
native chief who had assisted and encouraged the besiegers. 
The " leaguer of Arah " was one of the brilliant episodes in 
this terrible war, and was conducted entirely by civilians. 

Major Eyre continued on his way to Delhi as soon as his 
work was done. 

After Delhi, the most important city in the Bengal Presi- 
dency is Agra, the headquarters of the government of the 
Northwest Provinces, a division of India containing about 



270 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

thirty million of inhabitants. At Agra lived not only the 
Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Colvin, and his staff of subordi- 
nates, but the city contained many missionary establish- 
ments, — a Roman Catholic bishop, a convent of nuns, 
several Presbyterian missionaries, and a Government college 
largely devoted to the education of half-castes, or Eurasians. 
One clergyman in Agra at the time of the Mutiny was Mr. 
Fullarton, with his American wife, who, notwithstanding her 
three children and the smallness of her husband's salary, 
found time to devote much attention to missionary work, 
especially endeavoring to train half-caste girls to be good 
Christian wives and mothers, such as the heathen around 
them might take a lesson from. 

" Like a thunderclap," says Mr. Farquahar, one of the Com- 
pany's officers, " the news of the mutiny at Meerut on the loth 
of May fell on the Agra community, and turned the whole cur- 
rent of men's thoughts to preparations for the coming struggle. 
At that time three Native and one English regiment were at 
Agra, with a battery of six guns manned by Europeans. The 
Engh'sh force, indeed, was about six hundred in all. On Satur- 
day night, May 30, news arrived that some companies of one 
of the Agra regiments had mutinied at a station thirty-five miles 
off, and had fired on their English officers. The Agra regi- 
ments, notwithstanding their protestations of fidelity to their 
salt, could no longer be trusted. The authorities resolved to 
disarm them the next day, and send the men to their homes. 
The next step was to gather together all the Christians, Euro- 
pean and Eurasian, in places appointed beforehand as a refuge 
in case of danger. 

" The Sabbath sun rose that morning on a strange scene in 
the usually well-ordered station of Agra. Instead of early morn- 
ing church, the troops, Native and English, were assembled on 
parade, and then the Natives, to their great astonishment, found 
themselves drawn up opposite the European regiment and guns, 
and were ordered to lay down their arms. The great mass of 
men obeyed, as they had no time to make any arrangements, 
and, piling their arms, saw them carted away to the magazine. 
Mr. Fullarton, with his wife and family, was ordered to a dilapi- 
dated bungalow, pitched on the top of an old limekiln, which, 
from age, was covered with sheltering trees and grass. About 
ten in the evening I visited them, and there, outside the house 



THE lATDTAN MUTINY. 2/1 

lay groups of gentlemen under the trees, talking quietly over the 
events of the day, but with loaded double-barrelled guns, and 
plenty of ammunition at their sides. In the verandas ladies and 
native ayahs lay pretty closely packed, while the floors of the 
rooms inside were strewed with about as many babies and young 
children as they could readily hold. I saw Mr. Fullarton and 
some other gentlemen sitting below under one of the trees. The 
full moon shone through the leaves, and I remember well Mr. 
Fullarton's face turned up to speak to me, with a look and word 
of thankfulness for the mercies of the day. At his side, too, lay 
a double-barrelled gun which some gentleman had given him, 
knowing well that he would use it in defence of women and 
children." 

Five weeks later the devoted Lieutenant-Governor Col- 
vin was dead. The six hundred European soldiers had 
been marched out of Agra to meet five thousand mutineers, 
and, by mismanagement on the part of their commander, 
had been forced to retreat back into the Fort without cutting 
the rebels to pieces, though they scared them ofif to Delhi. 
Then all the Christian population of Agra was ordered into 
the Fort, for the lower and dangerous classes in the city 
were setting fire to their bungalows, and burned and 
destroyed everything. But the lives of the civilians and 
native Christians (with a few painful exceptions) were 
saved. 

" In this respect," says Mr. Farquahar, " we were immeasura- 
bly better off than the people of Cawnpore, Futtehghur, Delhi, 
and other stations. Distressing news from these places har- 
rowed the hearts of the Agra people, whose friends and rela- 
tions were the sufferers. But Mr. Fullarton and the other 
American missionaries were most moved by the news from 
Futtehghur, where there was a flourishing colony of indus- 
trious native Christians under charge of American Presbyterian 
Missionaries. 

" The English at Futtehghur took refuge in the Fort. There, 
as death from starvation threatened them, it was resolved to 
embark upon the Ganges in some boats stealthily with their 
women and children, and drop down the river to Cawnpore^ 
They were fired on from the banks when they nearly reached 
that place, and every one was slaughtered. Then the Sepoys 



2/2 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and the mob at Futtehghur set on the Christian village, wrecked 
it, and slew every Christian they could lay their hands on. 
News came to Agra that all had perished; but other news came 
that some few had escaped, and were wandering in the jungle. 
Again news came that one and then another had been caught, 
tortured, slain with the sword, or blown away from guns." 

Great was the rapture with which the remnant of these 
Christians received Mr. FuUarton when, as soon as it was 
practicable, he crossed the country in disguise, made his 
way into Havelock's camp, and thence to his people. 

" Some had been wandering for months in the jungle, more or 
less hunted and harassed. Part had been hidden and cared 
for by a native village chief at his great personal risk. He had 
had compassion on them, and a heart to hate the cruelty of the 
city roughs and mutinous Sepoys. ' These native Christians,' 
adds the gentleman who tells their story, ' had borne the spoil- 
ing of their goods ; they had seen some of their number cruelly 
murdered; they had suffered the humiliations and had under- 
gone the hardships, the anxieties, the fears that fill up the cup 
of bitterness that martyrs in other climes and other ages have 
had to drain. They had only to renounce their faith, in order 
that they and their families might be restored to honor and com- 
fort. But they would not deny their Saviour, and suffered, — 
a noble company of witnesses for the truth.' " 

Alas ! that I must end this story by telling that, in little 
more than a year after, Mr. Fullarton died of cancer in 
the tongue, and his widow, with her children, returned 
to America. 

When we think how the Mutiny was spread out over a 
country as large as Central Europe, it seems impossible to 
avoid telling its story by disconnected episodes, instead of 
a continuous tale. 

About thirty-seven years ago there came out a book 
which attracted great attention at the time, though at 
present it seems little known. It was called, I think, " The 
Private Life of an Eastern King," and gave an account of 
the young tyrant of Oude, — his habits, his courtiers, his 
elephants, his wild-beast hunts, his low debaucheries, his 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 273 

cruelties, and all the rest. It was written apparently by 
some man about his court who was a European. He, like 
Louis XL, made his barber his favorite minister. One felt 
as if such a creature ought not to be allowed to live outside 
of an insane asylum, much less be suffered to reign. So 
in time thought the British Government, which annexed 
Oude, gave the King a magnificent pension, and deprived 
him of his power. 

Having annexed Oude, the English proceeded to intro- 
duce their new land system, calculated to depress the old 
aristocracy and reduce it to poverty. The land then fell 
into the hands of men of much lower degree, and, be it 
said, with far less sense of honor. The system — which 
hardly need be explained in this brief sketch — was harshly 
carried out ; and the result was that by the beginning of 
1857 affairs in Oude were working so ill that the mild and 
conciliating Henry Lawrence was sent as governor into the 
province, to see what he could do with so dissatisfied a 
people. 

The court of Oude had been Mohammedan, but the 
people were nearly all Hindoos. Oude was only separated 
by the Ganges from the rest of British India. It had not 
only been always on good terms with the English, but had 
been the Sepoys' recruiting-ground. The general dissatis- 
faction, therefore, with the newfangled regulations of the 
new Government reacted on the Sepoys in the Company's 
army. 

Lucknow is the capital of Oude. Here is Sir Henry 
Lawrence's description of the city : — 

"The part called the modern city is both curious and splen- 
did, and altogether unlike the other great towns of India, 
whether Hindoo or Mohammedan. There is a strange dash 
of European architecture among its Oriental buildings. Trav- 
ellers have compared the place to Moscow and Constantinople, 
and we can easily fancy the resemblance. Gilded domes sur- 
mounted by the crescent: tall slender pillars; lofty colonnades ; 
houses that look as if they had been transplanted from Regent 
Street ; iron railings and balconies ; cages, some containing 

iS 



274 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

wild beasts, and others filled with strange bright birds ; gardens ; 
fountains and cypress-trees, elephants, camels, and horses ; 
gilt letters and Enghsh barouches, — all these form a charming 
picture." 

It was in March, 1857, when the Mutiny was just ripen- 
ing, and chappatties (those mysterious cakes which are the 
signal for a rising) were being distributed all over the coun- 
try, that Sir Henry Lawrence was made Governor of Oude, 
and went to Lucknow. 

Sir Henry's first endeavor was to conciliate the old 
Mohammedan aristocracy ; and in this he succeeded re- 
markably in six weeks, but he was not slow to detect the 
rising feehng of mistrust in all parts of his province. He 
saw that the feelings of the people were deeply excited 
on the caste question, and he knew any agitation on that 
subject to be dangerous. He saw that it was everywhere 
believed that the British Government was bent on destroy- 
ing the caste of Hindoo Sepoys, and he knew that to main- 
tain that caste inviolate the Hindoo would risk his life, his 
property, his household, all he most valued in the world. 
He wrote to Lord Canning, the Governor- General : — 

" I held a conversation with a Jemadar of the Oude artillery 
for more than an hour to-day, and was startled by the dogged 
persistence of the man (a Brahmin, of about forty years of age, 
of excellent character) in the belief that for ten years past Gov- 
ernment had been engaged in measures for the forcible, or 
rather the fraudulent, conversion of the natives." 

Very shortly indeed after Sir Henry's arrival at Lucknow, 
a great deal of excited feeling was manifested because 
a surgeon of the Sixty-eighth Native Regiment had in- 
cautiously put to his mouth a bottle of medicine. The 
Sepoys attributed his doing so to a deep-laid design to 
destroy their caste ; and although he at once broke the 
bottle in their presence, they burned his house down. 

But while Sir Henry used all means of persuasion with 
the Sepoys, and conciliation with the nobles, he did not 
neglect precautions. He determined to fortify the English 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 275 

Residency in Lucknow as a place of refuge in case of need, 
and to store it abundantly with ammunition and provisions. 

When news of the mutiny at Meerut was telegraphed 
to him, he urged the Governor- General to lose no time in 
sending to China, Ceylon, and other places for European 
troops, and asked leave, which was granted him, to apply 
to the gallant ruler of Nepaul, in the Hills, a Mohamme- 
dan prince, who, when on a visit to London about ten years 
before, had made a great sensation. 

Lucknow lies along the banks of the river Gumtee, and 
is about fifty miles from Cawnpore. On the 30th of May, 
the mutiny broke out among the Native troops stationed 
around Lucknow, and soon Sir Henry Lawrence and the 
Europeans were shut up in the Residency, surrounded by a 
howling savage multitude, raging like the sea, but fearfully 
dangerous, because largely composed of disciplined soldiers. 
Everywhere it was the same story. The European officers 
of native troops believing in their men to the last moment ; 
the men turning upon them suddenly, and killing them. 
In some instances they were merely ordered off, and suf- 
fered to gallop back to Lucknow, Sometimes for a while, 
in particular instances, the Sepoys showed extraordinary 
fidelity ; but their loyalty rarely stood the contact with other 
regiments that were in full revolt. 

Here is the story of poor Mr. Christian and his family, 
picked out among a multitude of others, all very nearly the 
same. 

Mr. Christian was the English Resident, at a station not 
far from the Hills, called Sitapore. On June 2, two native 
regiments, having insisted that the flour served out to them 
was adulterated with something to destroy their caste, the 
flour was all destroyed to satisfy them. The next day 
these regiments went out and opposed a large body of 
mutinous Sepoys. The day after, they shot their officers 
and rode off to Lucknow. 

" It is not easy," says the account I am following, "to describe 
the scene that followed. Other mutineers rushed with yells 
against Mr. Christian's bungalow. The only possible safety 



2/6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was in flight, and flight was difficult. A little river ran behind 
the bungalow. The fugitives had to cross it. Mr. Christian, 
who had boldly started, rifle in hand, to stay the mutineers, see- 
ing that all was lost, returned to flee with his family. Preceded 
by his wife, with her infant in her arms, he succeeded in cross- 
ing the little river; but he had scarcely reached the opposite 
shore when he was shot dead by the pursuers. A similar fate 
befell his wife, her baby, and the nurse. The elder child, a 
girl, who had been taken across the river by a sergeant, was 
conveyed by him to the estate of the Rajah of Mithoti, and 
ultimately to Lucknow, where she died. Mr. and Mrs. Thorn- 
hill, also residents at Sitapore, were shot crossing the stream. 
A few gentlemen and one lady escaped, and reached the lands 
of the Mithoti Rajah. He felt that it was very dangerous to 
protect them, and all he dared to do for them was to promise 
to put food where they could get it if they hid in the jungle. 
There they stayed nearly five months, when a party of Sepoys 
captured them, and took them prisoners into their camp before 
'Lucknow." 

A party, consisting of nine ladies, ten children, and three 
men, reached Lucknow, in a month, by circuitous paths, 
concealing themselves in the day-time, and protected by a 
native nobleman. 

Multiply such stories by fifty, and they will give some 
idea of what was going on all over India in the sumrner 
of 1857. Sometimes fugitives were all murdered, as was 
the case with a party from Mohamider, who trusted to a 
Sepoy guard who swore to escort them in safety. The sole 
survivor of this party tells the story : — 

" We were on our way to Arangabad, when suddenly a halt 
was sounded, and a trooper told us to go on our way where we 
liked. There were three ladies with us, crammed into one 
buggy ; the remainder lay prone on baggage-carts. We went on 
for some distance, when we saw a party coming along. They 
soon joined us and followed the buggy, which we were pushing 
along with all our might. When we were half a mile from 
Arangabad, a Sepoy sprang forward, snatched Ray's gun from 
him, and shot down poor old Shiels, who was riding my horse. 
Then the most infernal struggle ever witnessed by men began. 
We all collected under a tree close by, and put the ladies down 
from the buggy. Shots were firing in all directions, amid the 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 277 

most fearful yells. The poor ladies all joined in prayer, coolly 
and unflinchingly awaiting their fate. I stopped for about three 
minutes amongst them, but, thinking of my poor wife and child, 
I endeavored to save my life for their salces. I rushed out 
towards the insurgents, and one of our native soldiers called out 
to me to throw down my pistol and he would save me. I did 
so, when he put himself between me and the assailants, and 
several others followed his example. In about ten minutes they 
had completed their hellish work. They killed the wounded 
and the children, butchering them in the most cruel way. They 
denuded the bodies of their clothes for the sake of plunder. 
All were killed but myself; viz., one civilian, three captains, 
six lieutenants, three ensigns, one sergeant, a band-master, 
eight ladies, and four children." 

I need not repeat more of these sickening stories ; it 
is pleasanter to relate that kindness was shown to escaping 
bands of fugitives by village landowners, grateful to Sir 
Henry Lawrence, and by small Rajahs. Some Hill chiefs 
fell into disfavor with their own clans for hesitation to help 
the fugitives. One chiefs wife left him for his inhumanity ; 
and another native lady, wife of an old Rajah, bound her 
husband by an oath to show English fugitives any comfort 
and protection in his power. Some of those who showed 
most kindness to the English, in their hour of distress and 
humiliation, were men of wealth who had suffered much 
from the rough carrying out of Lord Dalhousie's land 
policy. 

Sir Henry Lawrence, in Lucknow, managed to keep open 
communication, by means of spies and secret messengers, 
with other stations, whence telegraphic messages and letters 
were sent to other places. But, next to the safety of the 
people with him, what weighed upon his heart was the 
condition of Cawnpore. In this place, Sir Hugh Wheeler 
was shut up with many women and children. It was but 
fifty miles from Lucknow, but it was on the other side 
of the Ganges. Most piteously did Sir Hugh implore Sir 
Henry to send him help. But this was impossible, There 
were no means by which to cross the river, even if the little 
force from Lucknow could have got so far. 



2/8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Cawnpore was invested by Nana- Sahib. This was not 
the man's name, but his title. He was a Mahratta chief, 
claiming to be the adopted son of the last sovereign of the 
Mahrattas. When that personage had yielded his domin- 
ions to the English, he had been granted a pension for him- 
self and for his heirs. He died without issue, but had 
adopted a short time before his death Dundoo Punt, or 
Nana Sahib. Lord Dalhousie asserted that the Nana had 
no claim to the reversion of the pension. The Nana natu- 
rally thought he had. Yet, with inconsistency on the part 
of the English Government, he was allowed to retain his 
adopted father's title of Peishwar, and to surround himself 
with troops and guns. It is a little remarkable that the 
Sepoys in this rebellion had no general who showed any 
generalship, or seems to have commanded their confidence 
or their attachment. Their nearest approach to such g, 
leader was the Nana, who joined them before Cawnpore. 

Here is Sir Hugh Wheeler's piteous last letter to Sir 
Henry Lawrence, dated June 24, 1857 : — 

" Since the last details, we have had a bombardment in this 
miserable position three or four times dail}' ; now nineteen 
days exposed to two twenty-fours, and eight other guns of 
smaller calibre, and three mortars. To reply with three nines 
is, you know, out of the question ; neither would our ammuni- 
tion permit it. All our gun-carriages are more or less disabled; 
ammunition short. British spirit alone remains ; but it cannot 
last forever. Yesterday morning they attempted their most 
formidable assault, but dared not come on. And after above 
three hours in the trenches, cheering on the men, I returned to 
the Fort to find my favorite darling son killed by a nine-pounder 
in the room with his mother and sisters. He was not able to 
accompany me, having been fearfully crippled by a severe con- 
tusion. The cannonade was tremendous. I venture to assert 
such a position, so defended, has no example ; but cruel has 
been the evil. We have no instruments, no medicine ; pro- 
visions for ten days at furthest, and no possibility of getting 
any, as communication with the town is cut off. Railway men 
and merchants have swollen our ranks to what they are (we had 
but two hundred and twenty soldiers to begin with), and the 
casualties have been numerous. The railroad men have done 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 279 

excellent service, but neither they nor I can last forever. 
We have lost everything belonging to us, and have not 
even a change of linen. Surely we are not to die like rats 
in a cage." 

Sir Henry replied, urging his friend to hold out ; assuring 
him that Europeans and Sikhs were coming to his relief 
from xA.llahabad ; and adding, " Do not accept terms from 
the enemy, as I much fear treachery. You cannot rely on 
the Nana's promises." And then he adds in French, " He 
has killed many prisoners." 

When this letter was written, poor Wheeler had already 
accepted terms. He had been wounded, and was dying. 
The moment the garrison was in the hands of the Nana, he 
followed up his murder of the Futtehghur fugitives (a few 
weeks before) by slaughtering every man of the garrison, 
and many of the women and children. The remainder 
before long met the same fate. Of this subsequent butch- 
ery I will tell hereafter, when I relate Havelock's march 
into Cawnpore. 

Meantime, the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay were 
in comparative tranquillity. The latter was under a very 
able governor. Lord Elphinstone. That the Punjaub was 
kept faithful, and more than faithful, — serviceable, — was 
due to Sir John Lawrence \ while the country of the Raja- 
poots was kept steady by his brother. Cawnpore and Delhi 
were in the hands of the rebels, and the great object of the 
English was to recover Delhi and put down the newly pro- 
claimed Emperor, who had his throne there. In Oude the 
only spot possessed by the English was the Residency at 
Lucknow, which sheltered about four thousand souls. It 
was surrounded, however, by an immense army of rebels, 
raging like an angry sea. 

Sir Henry Lawrence had been upon the point of going 
home on sick leave when he was earnestly entreated by Lord 
Canning to undertake the pacification of Oude. He had not 
been there six weeks when the Mutiny broke out. It was 
now nearly July. Once or twice he had been so far incapaci- 
tated by illness that he had temporarily resigned his authority 



28o ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

into the hands of a council. The leading man in this coun- 
cil was a Mr. Gubbins, whom Sir Henry deemed too rash ; 
but, indirectly influenced by this gentleman and those who 
thought like him, he, on June 30, made a sortie with his 
little force of about six hundred English, opposed, probably, 
to six thousand rebels. The sortie resulted in nothing but 
a loss of valuable English lives, which Sir Henry felt very 
keenly. Afterwards the mutineers poured into the city of 
Lucknow, and the British and their supporters (among them 
one stanch regiment of Sepoys) were shut up in the Resi- 
dency. There Sir Henry " had to keep up the appearance 
of sanguine confidence, when his whole soul was engrossed 
with thoughts of the dreadful fate awaiting the helpless crea- 
tures — women and children — committed to his charge. 
He had to soothe, argue with, and command the miscella- 
neous tempers which surrounded him, some hampering him 
with their fears and their advice, some always urging him on 
to what they considered to be more decisive measures." 

He had selected as his own quarters in the Residency a 
room in the upper story, because it gave him a good range 
of observation. During the first day's attack, July i, a shell 
burst in that room between Sir Henry and a friend who was 
sitting near him. He was urged to change his chamber, but 
laughingly repHed that he did not believe the enemy had a 
gunner good enough to do such a thing twice. A round 
shot, however, later in the day came in the same direction. 
Then he promised that he would move that very evening, 
but came home at nine o'clock exhausted. He flung him- 
self upon his bed, and said he would get a little rest, and 
then see about moving his desk and papers. 

As he lay on his bed one of his staff"- officers read over to 
him a paper he had written. Sir Henry was in the act of 
suggesting some improvements, when a shot struck the room, 
brought down the punkah, and stunned the younger officer, 
who, as soon as he could recover himself, cried out, " Are 
you hurt. Sir Henry?" The answer came in a low voice, 
" I am killed." When help came, the bed was found all 
crimson with his blood. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 28 1 

They moved him at once into the veranda of the Resi- 
dency, for coolness. His leg was shattered near the hip, and 
amputation was impossible. All that could be done was to 
relieve his pain. From place to place they moved him, as 
the continued bombardment knocked down the walls. On 
the morning of the 4th of July, 1857, he quietly died, hav- 
ing previously received the Holy Communion, with his 
nephew and other loved friends round him. He left minute 
directions regarding the conduct of the defence, begging his 
successor earnestly never to give in. He sent for officers in 
the garrison of whom he was most fond, told them what he 
expected of them, and spoke of the future. He also sent 
for all those whom he thought he had ever, though uninten- 
tionally, injured, or even spoken harshly to, and asked their 
forgiveness. At intervals he spoke a good deal of his dead 
wife, repeating texts she had been fond of. " He was 
buried," says his nephew, " in the churchyard where all the 
rest were ; but there was no one but the clergyman to attend, 
as the place was under fire, and every one at his post." 

General Sir John Inglis, who succeeded Sir Henry in the 
command, says : — 

" The successful defence of this position has been, under 
Providence, solely attributable to the foresight which he evinced 
in timely commencement of the necessary operations, and the 
great skill and personal activity which he exhibited in carrying 
them into effect. All ranks possessed such confidence in his 
judgment and fertility of resources that the news of his fall was 
received throughout the garrison with feelings of consternation 
as well as of grief, inspired in the hearts of all by the loss of a 
public benefactor and a warm personal friend." 

While he was still living (though he never heard of it), 
Government had appointed him Governor-General of India 
pro tern., to succeed Lord Canning, if anything happened to 
him. His brother John, Lord Lawrence, was subsequently 
Governor- General. One deeply regrets that Sir Henry did 
not know of his own appointment. It would have soothed 
his feelings, which had never recovered from the pain 



282 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

inflicted by his removal from the Punjaub after his dissen- 
sion with his younger brother. Some years after his death 
a plain tombstone was put up to him in the churchyard of 
Lucknow, and a space has been appropriated for a monument 
to him in St. Paul's. He left three orphan children, the 
eldest of whom, Alexander, was made a baronet in recog- 
nition of the services of his father. He died of an 
accident in Northern India, and his brother, Henry Wal- 
demar, is the present baronet. Sir Henry's third child was 
a little girl. 

This chapter has told of the outbreak of the Mutiny, of 
the terror of all, of the sufferings of all, but most of the 
sufferings of the women and children, and those who suf- 
fered for them. 

We leave Delhi in the hands of its Mohammedan rep- 
resentative of the Great Mogul, with Native troops from 
every part of India gathered in its defence, and British 
troops and Sikhs and Punjaubees marching to besiege 
them. The citadel at Agra was still held by the English, 
but was threatened by the rebels, and its garrison and its 
women were shut up in very restricted quarters, overlooking 
the city. Cawnpore was in the hands of Nana Sahib, and 
under him was the one Native chief who had shown gen- 
eralship, Tantia Topi. General Sir Hugh Wheeler and his 
garrison had been murdered, but the English women, and 
children were living still. 

Oude was in revolt, with the English shut up in Lucknow 
in the Residency. Calcutta was disquieted, but not rebel- 
lious. The Presidencies of Bombay and Madras had no 
means of giving help, but had given little trouble. The 
Punjaub was loyal, and its aid to the English was beyond 
all praise. Sir Colin Campbell (afterwards Lord Clyde), 
the Highland hero of the Crimea, was on his way from 
England to take the supreme military command. Lord 
Canning, son of George Canning, who died Prime Minister 
of England thirty years before, was Governor-General. 
Havelock and Outram had just reached Calcutta with rein- 
forcements of British troops brought back from Persia. 




^"■isL. 



SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. 
{Lord Clyde. ) 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 283 

English soldiers on their way to China had been stopped 
on their voyage, and the gallant Captain William Peel, R. N., 
son of Sir Robert, was making ready his naval brigade to 
do splendid service. Women and children were still wan- 
dering in the jungle, preferring to trust the tender mercies 
of wild beasts to being captured by the rebels. 

All this was in the month of July, 1857 ; but help was at 
hand. Succor was soon to reach Agra and Delhi. The 
darkest pages of the tragedy (save one) have now been 
written ; for in August the thunder-cloud began to turn its 
silver lining to the night, and before Christmas the Mutiny 
was over. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE INDIAN MUTINY {^Continued'). 

'T^HE last chapter told of the early stages of the Indian 
•■■ Mutiny in the spring and summer months of 1857; 
this is to tell principally of its collapse, and of the return of 
Anglo-Indians to peace and security. 

But before we reach this peace, we have to tell of the 
great and terrible massacre of the prisoners at Cawnpore ; 
of the capture of Delhi; of the defence of Lucknow; of 
Havelock ; of Outram ; of Sir Colin Campbell (Lord Clyde) ; 
of Nana Sahib ; and, finally, of the pacification of Bengal 
and Oude, and the extinction of John Company, — the 
familiar name by which the East India Company was 
called. 

We have seen how the last days of Sir Henry Lawrence 
at Lucknow were harassed by beseeching letters from Sir 
Hugh Wheeler, shut up in an indefensible position at Cawn- 
pore ; we have read the old General's last despairing letter, 
written beside the mangled corpse of his dear son ; and we 
have seen how Sir Henry answered it, cheering him by 
hopes that an English army was coming up to his rehef from 
Allahabad, and urging him to put no faith in Nana Sahib. 
This letter poor Wheeler never received. 

He was seventy-five years of age ; a brave, good man, 
an Anglo-Indian general of the old school. When the 
mutineers flocked into Cawnpore, and his Native troops 
mutinied, he shut himself up with his Europeans in a small 
building with low mud walls, outside the town. 

Some weeks before, finding that timely help was hardly 
likely to be had from his own countrymen, poor Sir Hugh 
Wheeler bethought him of a man who he was sure would 
be ready to give him assistance, — a man who was rich, 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 285 

powerful, and most hospitable to the English, and who lived 
about twelve miles from Cawnpore, at Bithoor. This man's 
name was Dundoo Punt ; but history knows him as Nana 
Sahib. 

The Mahratta chief, the Peishwar of Bithoor, who had 
adopted him, had been deposed early in the century by the 
English, but enjoyed an enormous pension from the British 
Government, assigned him for his support and that of his 
family. He also retained the title of Peishwar. 

The Hindoos, both by law and custom, attach great im- 
portance to adoption. Lord Dalhousie, in every case that 
came before him, made very light of it. He insisted that the 
old Rajah Rao's pension was only for his life. The Nana 
claimed that it was not for life only, but should descend to 
his adopted son. Which was right and which was wrong, 
has never been satisfactorily determined. It may be said, 
however, that the treatment of the Nana was not liberal. 
But he was a rich man, notwithstanding, having inherited the 
immense savings of his adopted father, and he settled down 
into his palace at Bithoor, friendly — very friendly, to all 
appearances — with his English neighbors. Meantime he 
sent an agent to England to represent him there, and to 
urge his claims to the pension that the Governor-General 
refused him. • This agent was a very handsome young 
Mohammedan, Azimoolah Khan. He had been footman 
or butler in an Anglo-Indian family, and had learned a 
great deal about English ways. Nothing delights fashion- 
able, lion-hunting London more than a picturesque foreign 
celebrity to be feted at the height of the season. We all 
remember Thackeray's picture in the " Newcomes " of the 
rascally Rummun Loll, surrounded by English beauties in an 
English drawing-room. Such a fate had Azimoolah Khan. 
He became the leading lion of the season in 1854. He 
persuaded himself that half the aristocratic beauties of Lon- 
don were over head and ears in love with him. He did not 
succeed in securing the Nana's pension, but he went back 
to India via Constantinople and the Crimea, where he told 
loathsome stories to English officers of the impression he 



286 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

had produced on English ladies, and imbibed an idea, from 
the Press and from what he saw in 1855, that the power of 
England was on the wane, and her resources exhausted by 
the Crimean war. 

This idea he imparted to his Nana, who, with vengeance 
in his heart against the English, smilingly bided his time. 
No Native prince was so hospitable, nor, to all appearance, 
so friendly; and the ladies and gentlemen at Cawnpore 
were delighted to be invited to behold and share the 
luxurious splendors of the palace where he lived ; rather 
fat for his age, which was thirty-six, and given over, to all 
appearance, to indolence and luxurious living. However, 
as soon as Sir Hugh Wheeler called upon him, he hastened 
to his assistance at Cawnpore. This was at the close of 
May. A few days after he reached Cawnpore he joined 
the rebel army, making a pretence of being captured by the 
Sepoys and forced to adopt their cause. I have already 
told how on the last of June or the first of July he mur- 
dered the fugitives in the boats who were escaping from 
Futtehghur. That murder was perpetrated within a few days 
of his greater atrocity. 

The little party under Sir Hugh Wheeler consisted of 
about one thousand persons, — 465 men, 280 grown 
women, and about the same number of little "children. A 
great many of the men were railroad and telegraph em- 
ployees, who fought bravely, — indeed, the bravery and 
endurance of all that hapless little band, shut up in their 
crumbling ruin, with absolutely no shelter either from sun, 
musketry, or cannon-shot, was something wonderful. All 
their sufferings were aggravated by the fact that every drop 
of water had to be drawn from the well under a sharp fire 
from the enemy. 

On June 27, Sir Hugh Wheeler received an offer of pro- 
tection from Nana Sahib, whom he still conceived to be (up 
to a certain point) his personal friend. The Nana promised, 
if he would surrender, to provide boats and rowers, and to 
take the garrison all down the Ganges to Allahabad. What 
followed is believed to have been largely the suggestion of 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 28/ 

Azimoolah Khan, that polished lion of the London drawing- 
rooms. 

The women and children of the garrison, and the sick 
and wounded, had embarked, and the men were getting 
into the boats, when suddenly a trumpet blew. At that 
signal one of the boatmen on board each boat set fire to 
the awning of thatch that protected the deck from the sun. 
The moment these awnings were in a blaze, on all sides 
came a fire upon the boats, not only of musketry, but of 
cannon placed in position. The men were all shot down. 
The majority of the women — wounded, terrified, heart- 
broken — were then re-landed, and marched back into 
Cawnpore, where they were confined for the night. One 
boat escaped ; but it was fired at all along the river bank, 
until at last twelve brave men landed, determined to drive 
back their assailants. The boat was captured before they 
could get back to her, and nearly a hundred women and 
children were carried back to Cawnpore, Of the twelve 
men who had landed, four escaped, — the only survivors of 
the Cawnpore garrison ; and these four endured incredible 
sufferings and went through numerous adventures before 
they reached a place of safety. 

The women were shut up in the old barracks. Daily 
some were brought out and made to grind corn for their 
captors ; but, as Mr. Justin McCarthy says, " They were 
doomed one and all to suffer death ; but they were not, as 
at one time was believed in England, made to long for 
death as an escape from shame." 

The wives of the old Peishwar (the same who had 
adopted Nana Sahib) were in Cawnpore, and, be it said 
to the honor of womanhood, they did all in their power to 
protect the unfortunate English women. 

At this juncture, General Havelock landed at Calcutta, 
on his return from a campaign in Persia, where England 
had been carrying on a " little war " around the walls of 
Herat. The very day after he reached Calcutta he was 
placed in command of a column ready to be sent at once 
to the succor of Lucknow and Cawnpore. 



288 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Havelock had for many years ardently desired a supreme 
command. At last his hour had come, but too late to 
enable him to succor Sir Hugh Wheeler. He reached 
Benares, on his way from Calcutta to Allahabad, the day 
that the massacre took place at Cawnpore. 

Of the difficulties and the distances that had to be sur- 
mounted in any communication between Cawnpore and 
Calcutta, I will tell a little later ; now I will not interrupt 
the narrative. 

Havelock had no cavalry, but he formed a corps of vol- 
unteer horsemen, — civilians, railroad and telegraph men, 
shopkeepers, and officers whose regiments had mutinied 
and who had escaped from their men. Fighting every inch 
of his way, twice winning two battles in one day, each time 
engaging with his whole force, he reached the outskirts of 
Cawnpore. There he fought a final battle, and drove the 
Nana Sahib and his troops out of the town. 

The first act of the conquerors was to rush to the old 
barracks where they had learned from spies that the ladies 
and children were confined ; and there such a sight met 
their eyes as never had been before recorded in the annals 
of English warfare. 

The day before, the three or four men still left alive 
among this band of over two hundred English women and 
children were called out and shot. Then some Sepoys 
were sent to the spot, and ordered to fire through the win- 
dows at the women and children. It is thought that the 
hearts of these men had some compassion, and that they 
aimed high purposely, to avoid killing their defenceless 
victims. At any rate, the bullet-marks on the walls indi- 
cate this. 

In the evening, five men (two Hindoo peasants, two 
Mohammedan butchers, and one a soldier of Nana Sahib) 
were sent to the place to murder every woman and child 
remaining alive. Shrieks upon shrieks were heard by those 
without, but no one knows what passed in those dreadful 
shambles. Twice the Mohammedan soldier came out and 
exchanged his reeking, broken sword for a keener one; 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 289 

then all sounds ceased, the five men left the place, the 
door was closed. But when it was opened in the morning, 
a few were found still living. They were dragged forth, — 
the dead and those not quite dead, — and thrown into a 
well. Some little children had still strength enough to try 
to get away. When Havelock's men entered the building 
where the massacre took place, the pavement was still 
slippery with blood, and fragments of ladies' and children's 
dresses lay soaking in it, with bonnets, collars, combs, and 
children's frocks and frills. On the pillars were deep 
sword-cuts, from which, in several places, hung tresses of 
fair hair. Proceeding in their search, the soldiers found 
human limbs bristling from a well in the garden. The 
dead, who had been thrown into it, filled it to the brim. 
Men of the strongest nerve burst into tears ; and what 
wonder that every savage instinct in men's hearts was 
roused to mad revenge? Two hundred and twelve was 
the number of those massacred in the barracks, besides 
those who perished in the river, and the 432 men. 

There was a story, afterwards circulated, that an in- 
scription had been found upon the whitewashed walls of 
the dreadful place, invoking vengeance on the murderers. 
But this was not so. Some one had disgraced him- 
self by adding it afterwards, to stimulate the thirst for 
revenge. 

The dreadful well has -been filled up ; the tender bodies 
were buried ; the barracks have been pulled down ; and 
a memorial chapel, surrounded by a beautiful garden, has 
been erected on the spot. 

As to Nana Sahib, his army was defeated four months 
later by the English, and no one ever knew what afterwards 
became of him. Utterly routed, he galloped, on a wounded 
and exhausted horse, through Cawnpore, and made his way 
to his own palace at Bithoor. He there paused long 
enough to order the murder of a fugitive Englishwoman 
who had fallen into the hands of his people, and then 
he took flight in the direction of Nepaul. Never has he 
been again heard of. Years after, the English thought that 

19 



290 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

they had captured him, but it proved that they had caught 
a wrong man. Tantia Topi, his heutenant, a brave man 
and a good general, whose hands, as far as history knows, 
were free from the blood shed in this horrible massacre, 
was hunted for months from place to place, suffering defeat 
after defeat. He was betrayed to the English at last, by 
a man whom he had trusted, and was hanged. He might 
better have been spared. He had never been in the 
service of the English, and owed them neither allegiance 
nor fidelity. As for Azimoolah Khan, I never heard what 
befell him. I trust it is not un- Christian to hope that he 
met with his deserts. 

We may now pause, leaving Havelock in possession of 
Cawnpore, and take up the story of the siege of Delhi, 
before we go on to describe the relief of Lucknow, or the 
subsequent operations of Lord Clyde. 

The cry of every rebel regiment the moment it got rid 
of its English officers was, " To Delhi ! " Had the first 
mutineers at Meerut been cut down, as it was thought they 
might have been by vigorous action, before reaching Delhi, 
it is probable that the rebeUion, if not the Mutiny, might 
have lacked a head. The old Emperor living at Delhi in 
his palace, with the English Resident, Mr. Frazer, to con- 
duct his affairs, was eighty-two years old. The mutineers 
from Meerut swarmed into his capital, murdered the Resi- 
dent, and insisted on proclaiming him the successor of 
Aurungzebe. There is no evidence that the old man had 
anything to do with the outbreak of the rebellion ; but when 
"greatness was thrust upon him," he did not decline it, but 
put himself at the head of the political movement to over- 
throw the power of the English in India. 

There was no possibility of sending up an English army 
from Calcutta to recapture Delhi ; but an army, and every- 
thing needful for its support, was provided by Sir John 
Lawrence in the Punjaub. He perceived that Delhi was 
the keystone to the arch of the rebellion ; and while many 
were urging him to look first to his hold on his own province, 
he hurried forward every available man and gun to Delhi. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 29I 

Even the inflammatory elements of society in the Punjaub 
were turned to good service. The old gunners who had 
fought the English nine years before were called from their 
ploughs to fight England's enemies ; low-caste Sikhs were 
enrolled as sappers ; chiefs who had " been out " in the '48 
and '49 against the English, were summoned, with their fol- 
lowings, and sent off to Delhi. It was also a great thing for 
the English that they had the electric telegraph connecting 
Lahore with Calcutta still in their hands. 

The siege of Delhi was long, and more than once the 
situation became doubtful. The first general of the array^ 
General Anson, died of cholera ; the second, General 
Barnard, died also of cholera ; General Reid succeeded 
him, and in a month was invalided to the Hills. One of 
the most brilliant soldiers Lawrence sent to Delhi was 
Nicholson, — a very Achilles for bravery ; and not unlike 
Achilles in haughty unwillingness to render obedience to 
any one who in his judgment was an incapable superior. 

General Wilson took the command after Anson, Barnard, 
and Reid had succumbed to illness ; and General Baird 
Smith, a man of far more energy, commanded the engineers. 

The siege of Delhi lasted from May to the latter days of 
September. The English force engaged was eight thousand 
seven hundred men, of whom a little more than one in three 
were Europeans. Delhi was a city seven miles in circum- 
ference ; it was filled with an immense fanatical Mohamme- 
dan population ; it was garrisoned by forty thousand soldiers, 
all armed and disciplined in the English service, with one 
hundred and fourteen pieces of heavy artillery mounted on 
the walls, besides sixty smaller pieces, served by trained 
artillerymen. It had also had immense stores of ammuni- 
tion laid up by the English ; but the arsenal had been blown 
up when the Mutiny began, by self-devoted Englishmen. 
The city was so well prepared to stand a siege that General 
Wilson desponded from the first. In every despatch he 
wrote that Havelock ol: some other general must be sent 
from the south to help him ; but the arrival of such relief 
was utterly impossible. Havelock and Outram had their 



292 ENGLAND IN THE NINEJ'EENTH CENTURY. 

hands full, and over-full, and Delhi had to fall before the 
English force besieging it, or not at all. 

General Wilson thought not at all. So did not General 
Baird Smith, who, wounded, and prostrated by scurvy and 
dysentery, still kept up his spirit, and, assisted by a gallant 
officer. Alec Taylor, kept continual watch over everything 
in his department. 

At last General Wilson, urged vehemently by Baird Smith, 
and seeing nothing better to be done, consented to sanc- 
tion an assault early in September. The attack by artillery 
began on September 7, and by September 12 it was thought 
that two breaches had been made in the city walls. Then 
two parties volunteered to reconnoitre. One of them con- 
sisted of eight men ; six of them privates, and two officers. 
They started at ten at night. It was bright starlight, but no 
moon. As they were about leaving the camp, a shell exploded 
near them, and covered them with dust. They sprang to 
their feet, drew their swords, and, feeling that their revolvers 
were ready at hand, started into the enemy's country. 
They reached the edge of the ditch that surrounded the 
wall of Delhi : not a soul was to be seen. Four of them 
slid down into the moat. In a few moments more they 
would have reached the breach ; but, unhappily, they had 
not been quite noiseless. They saw men running. They 
knew they had been seen. They therefore cUmbed out of 
the ditch, and hid themselves in the long grass, whence, as 
they watched, they could see a file of men loading their 
muskets to fire at them. They did not neglect even at this 
moment to examine the breach. They saw that it was 
large, easy of ascent, and with no guns on the flanks. 
Then, finding that they could not hope to approach nearer, 
they sprang to their feet at a given signal, and started for 
their own lines at a full run. The fire that pursued them 
was very lively, but happily they escaped. On their report, 
and that of two officers who had examined the other 
breach, an assault was ordered for daybreak the following 
morning. Major Nicholson, the hero of the campaign, was 
placed in command of the column that was to attack the 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 293 

breach that the eight volunteers had reconnoitred. Three 
other columns were directed against other points. 

" It was three in the morning," says Colonel Malleson, the 
historian of the Mutiny; "the columns of assault were in the 
leash. In a few moments they would be slipped. What would 
be the result .'' The moment was supreme. Would the skill 
and daring of the soldiers of England triumph against superior 
numbers, defending and defended by stone walls ? Or would 
rebellion, triumphing over the assailants, turn its triumph to still 
greater account, by inciting by its means to its aid the Punjaub 
and other parts of India still quivering in the balance? That 
indeed was the question. Delhi was in itself the smallest of 
the results to be gained by a successful assault. The fate of 
India was in the balance. The repulse of the British would 
entail the rising of the Punjaub." 

The assault took place at daybreak ; and by evening of 
the next day the English, after a fierce struggle, had gained 
the outer portion of the city. Several days of desper- 
ate street-fighting followed. The palace was reached ; its 
gates were blown open with gunpowder; a few fanatics 
who had remained in it were slaughtered. The British 
flag was hoisted, and the city of the Moguls, now resem- 
bling a city of the dead, was in the hands of the English 
conquerors. 

"And then we thought on vengeance; and all along our van, 
' Remember Englishwomen's wrongs!' was passed from man to man." 

The General had issued an order to show no mercy to men, 
but to spare women and children. 

There was with the army at Delhi, Colonel Hodson, of 
Hodson's Horse, a man born with all the characteristics 
of a condottiere of the Middle Ages ; with all the daring, 
personal magnetism, generalship, and self-devotion of that 
class of men; with their reckless indifference to human 
life (their own inclusive) ; with a taste for rough and ready 
justice, — or injustice, as the case might be, — and for 
gain or plunder wherever or however it could be won. 
Hodson had real pleasure in vengeance. His feet were 



294 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

swift to shed blood. With all this, he was loved by his 
friends^ (no man ever had a nobler set of them), and he 
was adored by those nearer and dearer to him. " He was 
one of those strangely mixed characters that may not be 
imitated, but must stand before the bar at the Great Assize 
before they can be judged." 

He was a clergyman's son, born in England in 182 1. 
He was at Rugby before the time of Dr. Arnold, and was 
distinguished there by his love of discipline, ruling with 
high-handed justice, and in the interest of boys who were 
oppressed, in his own division of the school. He went to 
college, but his desire was for soldiership. On reaching 
India he became a great favorite with Sir Henry Lawrence. 
He gave his hero-worship to Sir Charles Napier : he was 
the intimate friend of Robert Napier (since Lord Napier 
of Magdala) . Everything he did, he did well ; and words 
were weak in which these men would praise him. In 1847 
he was put second in command over an irregular corps of 
Punjaubee cavalry, called the Guides. " They included 
men of many races, many creeds. Notorious criminals 
and dare-devil highwaymen were to be found among 
them. Indeed, no questions were asked a candidate for 
enlistment, as to character; he needed only to show 
that he had a thorough knowledge of the roads, rivers, 
resources, and mountain-passes of the district in which 
he lived." 

With these men Hodson did admirable service in the 
Second Sikh War (1846-47). In 1852 he was married to 
a lady he had loved some years, and whom he continued all 
his life to love devotedly. He had quitted the Guides be- 
fore this, but soon after, he was appointed to the chief 
command of them. '' I am the luckiest man on the whole 
earth," he wrote exultingly. But, alas ! he was extravagant 
by nature, and was soon deep in debt, — a state of things 
sadly common among young officers in India. 

We need not linger over the sad story. He was accused 
of misappropriating the regimental funds. He was tried 
for it, and dismissed from his command. The very week 
1 See note on page 442. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 295 

this scandal was made public, he had lost his only child. 
Not only was he accused of dishonorable money trans- 
actions, but of high-handed injustice in the exercise of his 
authority. 

He was sent back as a subaltern to his regiment, after 
ten years of distinguished and independent command. 
Then the Mutiny broke out, and Hodson was wild for 
employment. All the former charges against him were 
overlooked, — he was a man whose services in that emer- 
gency would be so splendid and valuable ! 

Splendid and valuable they were. He was authorized to 
raise a regiment of irregular cavalry, — Hodson's Horse. 
He was replaced in command of his old regiment, the 
Guides. All the spy service of the army before Delhi 
was intrusted to him ; and it was so well conducted that 
the officers before Delhi used to say that Hodson knew 
every day what the King of Delhi had for dinner. Then 
came the bombardment, the assault upon the city, and 
the victory. 

But the old King of Delhi had escaped, and had taken 
refuge in a magnificent mausoleum, the tomb of the Em- 
peror Hoomayoon, a few miles from Delhi. One of his gen- 
erals, who was making off with the remains of the defeated 
forces to the hills, urged him to go with them. But the old 
man had two evil counsellors, — a young wife who dreaded 
hardships, and a treacherous vizier who hoped to make his 
own peace with the English by delivering his master into 
their hands. This man communicated with one of Hod- 
son's chief spies, and Hodson went to General Wilson and 
asked leave to arrest the King. For some time Wilson 
hesitated. He seems habitually to have hesitated about 
everything. At last it was settled that the King should be 
promised his life if he surrendered ; and Hodson set out 
with fifty of his troopers. A vast crowd was round the 
tomb in which the aged King had taken refuge, with his 
counsellors and his zenana. After a two-hours' negotiation 
the old man surrendered. Hodson took away his arms, 
and led him off captive to await his trial. 



296 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" But the King's three sons were still to be brought to their 
account. Never doubting that these men had hounded on the 
murderers of the English ladies and children, Hodson and his 
companions were too thoroughly possessed by the desire for 
their condign punishment to think of asking for proofs of their 
guilt. Hodson, therefore, resolved to go and capture them, as 
he had done the King. At first, General Wilson would not give 
his consent; but Hodson was importunate. Nicholson, from 
his dying bed, where he lay mortally wounded, vehemently 
supported him; and General Wilson at last yielded. At eight 
o'clock in the morning Hodson started with McDowell, his 
lieutenant, and one hundred picked men of his own regiment. 
Let the reader," continues the writer from whom I copy this 
account, "try to picture to himself the departing cavalcade. 
Wild-looking horsemen, wearing scarlet turbans and dust- 
colored tunics bound with scarlet sashes; their leader a tall, 
spare man, attired like them, riding his horse with a loose 
rein, with reddish-brown hair and beard, aquiline nose, thin, 
curved, defiant nostrils, and blue eyes which seemed aglow 
with a half-kindled light. 

" The Princes in a tomb where they also had taken refuge 
endeavored to stipulate for life. Hodson curtly refused to make 
any stipulation at all. At last they yielded. Their situation 
was desperate, and their last hope appeared to be in English 
mercy. They set out in a bullock-cart. An immense crowd 
followed them, and after some time pressed upon their escort, 
which had been reduced to ten troopers, the others having 
been sent away. There is little doubt that Hodson hoped that 
some attempt at a rescue might give him an excuse for despatch- 
ing his prisoners with his own hand ; but the attempt at rescue 
was not made. When about a mile from Delhi he suddenly 
halted his party, ordered the Princes to get out of the bullock- 
cart and strip off their upper garments ; then, borrowing a car- 
bine from one of his troopers, he shot them all three dead. ' I 
am not cruel, but I confess I did rejoice in ridding the earth of 
these wretches,' he wrote that very evening to a friend ; and he 
had said previously that ' if he got into the palace, the House 
of Timour would not be worth five minutes' purchase.' '^ 

How far these men were guilty of the shedding of Eng- 
lish innocent blood in Delhi was never known, their sum- 
mary execution having prevented any investigation of their 
crimes. Their bodies were exposed at the gate of Delhi 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 297 

for some days. Their valuables, men believed, passed into 
the hands of their slayer. 

The old King of Delhi was tried and condemned ; but 
his life was spared. Government sent him to the Cape of 
Good Hope ; but the colonists would not permit him to 
make their land his asylum. He was brought back to India, 
and ended his days at Rangoon. 

Hodson did not live to receive censure from England, or 
praise for his unauthorized violence ; though the former has 
since been lavished on him freely, especially when his mur- 
der of the Princes was found not to be an isolated case of 
red-handed vengeance, — unjust vengeance on one occasion 
on a man who had once stood his friend. 

For two weeks after the death of the Princes of Delhi 
Hodson continued with the victorious army ; then he was 
sent to clear the country from bands of rebels, and to bring 
in supplies. He did his work effectually. Next, Sir Colin 
Campbell, prompted by Colonel Seaton, who knew Hodson 
well, asked for his services. " I would rather have him," 
said Seaton, " than five hundred men." 

In storming one of the palaces at Lucknow, in March, 
1858, under Sir Colin, he was present, though it was not 
part of his duty, as a cavalry officer, to be there ; besides 
which he was imperfectly cured of a wound. Attempting to 
rush with his sword upon a group of rebels hiding in a dark 
passage, he was urged not to go forward, — he was even 
withheld forcibly for a moment ; but he pushed on, and 
received his death-wound. 

" There must have been something that was noble in a man 
so loved by comrades and so valued by superior officers, them- 
selves brave soldiers and high-minded and Christian men. 
Posterity will not, indeed, be blinded by the glamour of his mil- 
itary exploits ; they will not admit him to a place among the 
nobler heroes of the Indian Mutiny : but while they will not be 
able to forget that he enriched himself by dishonest means, and 
that, heedless of justice, of gratitude, and even of honor, he was 
swift to shed innocent blood, they will remember that he was also 
an aflfectionate son, a good comrade, a tender husband, that he 
rendered brilliant services to his country, and that he died fight 
ins: to the last against her enemies." 



298 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

We have now seen Cawnpore once more in the hands of 
the Enghsh, and Delhi has fallen, — thus ending any political 
rebellion as typified by the setting up of a new Great Mogul ; 
there remains now the suppression of the Mutiny in Oude, 
together with the relief of Lucknow, its second siege, and 
the defeat of the mutineers gathered between it and Cawn- 
pore. The heroes of this second part of our history are 
Havelock, Outram, Lord Clyde, and Captain William Peel, 
R. N. (Sir Robert's son). 

It was July 4, 1857, that Sir Henry Lawrence died at 
Lucknow ; and the command devolved upon General Inglis, 
who, with Major Banks, had enjoyed to the fullest extent Sir 
Henry's confidence. Two weeks afterwards. Major Banks 
was killed by a bullet through his head. 

It would not be possible in this small space to give an 
account of the military operations of the siege of the Resi- 
dency at Lucknow by the Sepoys. 

Lucknow was a long, straggling town on the banks of the 
Goomtee, a tributary of the Ganges. In it there were a num- 
ber of palaces, and all round it were the residences of the 
Oude nobles, surrounded by high walls and by beautiful gar- 
dens. There were, besides, many mosques, also surrounded 
by walls and flowers and groves. Among the palaces was the 
Martiniere, built by a French officer named Martin, in the 
service of a former King of Oude, and after his death con- 
verted into 'a boys' orphan asylum. There was the Alum- 
baugh, a fortified palace about two miles from the city ; 
there was the Muchee Baum, blown up by Sir Henry Law- 
rence ; there, too, was the Kaiserbaugh, or King's Palace, 
with a beautiful mosque attached to it. The Residency was 
also surrounded by a high wall, and stood in a large garden, 
with other houses within the enclosure. Into this Residency 
all the Europeans and all the faithful among the native troops 
were crowded, to stand a siege. The place was commanded 
from the tops of several mosques and many rehgious edifices, 
whence sharpshooters fired down into the enclosure ; for 
Sir Henry Lawrence had been anxious to spare holy places 
as well as private property, and these buildings had not been 
destroyed. From them proceeded a brisk fire of musketry 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 299 

night and day. The commanding General estimated that 
there could not have been less than eight thousand men, at 
any one time, firing into the English position. This rendered 
every part of the Residency unsafe. The sick and wounded 
were killed in inner rooms, and the widow of Lieutenant 
Dorin and other women and children were shot dead in 
places where it was supposed no bullet could reach them. 
Besides this, the enemy brought up about twenty-five large 
cannon and planted them all round the English position, 
very close to the defences. Had the rebels only had the 
spirit to make one brilliant dash, all might have fallen into 
their hands ; but they were Asiatics, and almost leaderless, 
fighting Europeans. 

This firing and cannonading was kept up till July 20, the 
day before Major Banks was killed. On that day the rebels 
exploded a mine and attempted an assault, but were driven 
back at every point with great slaughter. They then re- 
sumed their cannonading and their musketry, until the 
loth of August. 

That day they exploded another mine, and made a 
breach through which a regiment could have advanced ; 
but when they attempted it, the fire of the English garri- 
son was too hot for them. Every attempt, either to scale 
the walls or to pour through the breach, had to be given 
up. On August 18 there was another assault, and again on 
September 5. The Sepoys' loss that day must have been 
very heavy, the ground all round the English position 
being strewed with their corpses. 

In addition to the usual cares of war, the little garrison 
was kept at hard labor countermining the mines of the 
enemy. They experienced the extremes of wet and heat 
during this summer siege, with very little shelter either 
from rain or sun. Besides this, they were harassed and 
kept on the qtii vive by constant false alarms from the 
enemy. 

" I feel," says General Inglis, " that any words of mine would 
fail to convey any idea of what our fatigue and labors have 
been, — labors in which all ranks and all classes (civilians, ofifi- 



300 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

cers, and soldiers) have all borne an equally noble part. All 
have together descended into the mines, all have together 
handled the shovel for the interment of the putrid bullocks, 
and all, accoutred with musket and bayonet, have reheved each 
other on sentry, without regard to the distinctions of rank, civil 
ormiHtary; and the enemy, notwithstanding their overwhehn- 
ing numbers and their incessant fire, could never succeed in 
gaining one inch of ground within the bounds of the Residency, 
which was so feebly fortified that had they once obtained a 
footing in any of the outposts, the whole place must inevitably 
have fallen. During the early part of these vicissitudes we 
were left without any information of the posture of affairs with- 
out. On the twentieth day of the siege, however, a pensioner 
named Asgad brought in a letter from General Havelock's 
camp, informing us that they were advancing with sufficient 
force to bear down all opposition, and would be with us in five 
or six days. A messenger was immediately despatched, re- 
questing that on their arrival on the outskirts of the city two 
rockets might be sent up, in order that we might take the neces- 
sary measures for assisting them to force their way in. The 
sixth day, however, expired, and they came not; but for many 
evenings after, officers and men watched for the ascension of 
the expected rockets with hopes such as make the heart sick. 
We knew not then — nor did we learn till August 29, thirty-five 
days later — that the relieving force, after leaving Cawnpore, 
fought most nobly to effect our deliverance, but had been 
obliged to fall back for reinforcements ; and this was our last 
communication before the arrival of help, on the 25th of 
September." 

He goes on to speak of the heavy duties that fell on the 
European ladies, — deprived of servants, attending on all 
the sick, and on their children, the mortality among whom 
was great. 

Dr. Brydon, the sole survivor of the Cabul massacre, 
was at Lucknow during these terrible days of hard fighting 
and uncertainty. He was subsequently highly commended 
by the Government in their despatches, for his self-devotion 
and efficiency. The General also says : — 

" With respect to the Native troops among us, I am of opinion 
that their loyalty never was surpassed. They were indifferently 
fed and worse housed, and were exposed, especially the Thir- " 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 301 

teenth Regiment, to a most galling fire of shot and shell. Every 
effort — persuasion, promise, and threat — was used to make 
them desert us ; and in all probability we should have been 
sacrificed by their desertion. Sir James Outram has promised 
to promote them. Our artillerymen were at the last so reduced 
that they had to run from one battery to another to fight their 
guns. Towards the last we had only twenty-four European 
gunners, and no less than thirty guns in position." 

" But ever upon the topmost roof the banner of England blew ! " 

I have in the General's own words given the " plain, 
unvarnished tale " of the defence of Lucknow till the ar- 
rival of Havelock and Outram on September 25. I have 
given no pathetic incidents of the siege. I have followed 
the official report of the commanding General to his Gov- 
ernment in his own words ; and yet how pathetic is that 
picture of officers and men night after night, for five-and- 
thirty nights, looking out for the signal rockets that never 
came ! 

When General Havelock had communicated his taking 
of Cawnpore, July 16, to the Government at Calcutta, Gene- 
ral Neill was at once despatched to him as second in com- 
mand, and to take his place in the event of any casualty. 
He arrived July 24, and Havelock was eager the next day 
to cross the Ganges, leaving Neill in command at Cawn- 
pore, with two hundred men. The force under Havelock 
was about fifteen hundred. The Ganges was swollen, and 
very hard to cross. It took them four days to get over it. 
In a week Havelock and his little band had fought and won 
two battles ; but such victories were destniction to the vic- 
tors, especially as cholera was beginning to make ravages 
among them. Havelock began to feel that if he lost by sick- 
ness and casualty two hundred and fifty men out of fifteen 
hundred every twenty-four hours, he would, even if success- 
ful, bring little relief to Lucknow. He decided to fall back 
nearer to Cawnpore, and wait for reinforcements. 

General Neill was greatly disappointed. He had no wish 
to send on to Havelock every reinforcement that might 
•reach him coming up the river. He complained loudly, 



302 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

wrote Havelock an unbecoming letter, and forwarded his 
own views of the situation to Calcutta. 

More and more difficulties surrounded Havelock. Nana 
Sahib had made new levies, and these were swarming round 
him. The Gwalior contingent had revolted from Scindia, 
their chief, who was loyal to the English ; and on August 
13, Havelock fell back on the city of Cawnpore. On the 
evening of August 1 7, after his return from Bithoor, the 
former capital of Nana Sahib, where he had fought a 
stoutly contested battle and gained a victory, the ha- 
rassed General received a Calcutta newspaper informing 
him that he was superseded, that his superior officer, Sir 
James Outram, was coming up the river to take the com- 
mand, and, with reinforcements, push on to Lucknow. 

Outram is known to history as the Bayard of the East, — 
the man who had no thought of self; who would do justice 
and love mercy, without fear of personal consequences. The 
last service on which he had been employed was a brief war 
with Persia, from which he had returned just in time to take 
command of the expedition which, reinforced by Havelock's 
men, was to relieve Lucknow. With Lucknow, Sir James 
was thoroughly acquainted, having lived there as Resident 
for some time. 

He accordingly reached Cawnpore, when his immediate 
assumption of the command would have cut off Havelock's 
hopes of being the officer to bring succor to the besieged 
garrison : humiliating him as a soldier, grieving him as a 
man. Havelock was too good a subordinate to make com- 
plaint at such a moment ; but the first thing Sir James Out- 
ram did on his arrival, was to issue a general order to the 
troops, saying that he was not the man to take from such 
an officer as General Havelock the credit of an expedition 
for which he had labored and planned ; that he, therefore, 
though General Havelock's senior in military rank, would 
leave him the command of the little army, and accompany 
it only as civil commissioner, till Lucknow was reheved, 
when he would resume his authority. 

By all military men this is considered one of the most 




SIR JAMES OUTRAM. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 303 

generous deeds ever done by one soldier to another. As 
such, it is spoken of by Lord Canning in an ofificial paper, 
and it was depicted in the centre of a silver shield presented 
by the inhabitants of Bombay to Sir James Outram, as being 
the crowning glory of his noble life of service and honor. 

The united force, therefore, pushed on through dangers 
and difficulties innumerable till it came within striking 
distance of Lucknow, and made its way into the Residency. 

But, alas ! it was as a relief it came, and not as a deliver- 
ance. It had no means of transport to convey away the 
women and children, the sick and the wounded ; and 
even if it had had the means, it was not strong enough 
to convey them through hosts of enemies. All it could 
do was to join them, to enable them to hold out, to share 
the labors of the defence with them, and wait for better 
times. Happily there were plenty of provisions in the 
Residency. Sir James Outram took possession of some 
mosques and buildings outside the Residency limits and 
fortified them till they strengthened his position. Thus 
they remained, from September till November, anxiously 
hoping for more relief, but far better off than they had 
been before Outram and Havelock reached them. 

Meantime, in September, Sir Colin Campbell, the High- 
land hero of the Crimean war, had reached Calcutta, and 
troops began to pour in, — from the Mauritius, from the 
Cape of Good Hope, from transports on their way to 
China, and, most valuable of all, the sailors and gunners 
of the Naval Brigade, organized from the ships of war, under 
Captain William Peel. " He showed eminently all the qual- 
ities of an organizer and a leader of men," says one who 
knew him in India. "Nothing he ever did failed." *'The 
greatness of our loss we shall never know," was said a few 
months later, when his crowning work was done, and he 
died of smallpox at Cawnpore. 

An English writer thus sums up the situation in India 
when Sir Colin Campbell arrived to take supreme com- 
mand of the English forces, in September, 1 85 7, before the 
fall of Delhi : - 



304 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" A great empire seemed on the point of being lost. The 
Sepoy army, well organized, well disciplined, and well provided, 
had broken into revolt. The whole of Northern, Central, and 
Western India seemed about to be lost. Nothing but Sir John 
Lawrence's energy in the Punjaub saved India. But for him, 
the war would soon have raged around Calcutta." 

At the time Sir Colin landed as general-in-chief, Cal- 
cutta and the Government were entirely cut off from 
Delhi and the Punjaub. Before Delhi, a small English 
force was confronting a fortified city defended by a large 
army of revolted Sepoys ; a small garrison, with women and 
children and ecclesiastics, was shut up in the citadel at 
Agra ; a similar garrison was imprisoned in the Residency 
at Lucknow. Besides this, it is necessary to consider the 
extraordinary difficulties Sir Colin Campbell had to over- 
come on the march from Calcutta, before we can fully 
estimate his last triumphant campaign. 

From Calcutta to Allahabad, on the Ganges, is 809 miles 
by water, 503 by land. From Calcutta for 120 miles there 
was a railroad ; but from its terminus at Raneegunge there 
were nearly four hundred miles to be travelled on foot or in 
bullock-carts to reach Allahabad. To reach Allahabad by 
steamer up the Ganges was at any time slow work, and now 
all along the river were parties of the enemy ready to fire 
on any steamer. From Allahabad to Cawnpore is about 
eighty miles. At Cawnpore the bridge of boats across the 
Ganges was a thousand feet in length, and from Cawnpore 
to Lucknow is fifty miles. 

Every kind of supply for the army on its march had to 
be brought from Calcutta, — tents, guns, clothing, ammu- 
nition, flour ; for all that the English had previously pos- 
sessed along the route had fallen into the hands of the 
enemy. 

Sir Colin brought his troops to Raneegunge by train, then 
he put them into bullock-carts, with relays of bullocks 
already stationed along the route, and carried them onward, 
travelling by night and resting by day. In this way they 
arrived at Allahabad fresh, and ready for service. The 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 305 

little army (never over four thousand strong) was composed 
of scraps and remnants of corps. In it were some High- 
landers devoted to Sir Colin, and some Sikhs and Punjau- 
bees sent down from Delhi. But from Delhi had come 
also a great accession to the rebel forces round Cawnpore ; 
viz., the Gwalior contingent, the native troops of the great 
chief Scindia, who had had great difficulty in keeping them 
fjom declaring against the English some time before. When 
Scindia heard of the fall of Delhi, however, he expressed 
such satisfaction that his troops could be restrained from 
mutiny no longer, and, declaring that they must find a 
leader who would conduct them against the English, they 
marched off to joiri Nana Sahib. 

This formidable body when Sir Colin reached Cawn- 
pore was threatening the city, and military precedent would 
have demanded that he should first dispose of them, and, 
leaving his rear safe, should then have marched on Luck- 
now. But advices from Sir James Outram reached him, 
pressing his arrival. He feared lest the provisions of the 
little garrison at Lucknow might not hold out ; and, leaving 
a small force at Cawnpore under General Windham, to- 
gether with the baggage of his army and stores of all kinds 
brought for the comfort of the rescued women and children, 
he pressed on to Lucknow. 

The siege of Lucknow may be said to have consisted of 
four acts. The first, when Sir Henry Lawrence shut himself 
up, in May, with his little party in the Residency; the sec- 
ond, the siege and defence that continued after Sir Henry's 
death to the arrival of Havelock, from July to September ; 
thirdly, the siege till Sir Colin Campbell arrived and car- 
ried off the women and children ; and, lastly, the return 
of Sir Colin's army, the capture of Lucknow, and the utter 
discomfiture of the rebels. 

We are now considering the story of the third act, which 
ends with the rescue of the garrison out of the besieged 
Residency. 

When Outram and Havelock became aware that Sir Colin 
had reached the Alumbaugh, a fortified palace less than 



306 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

three miles from Lucknow, it became very desirable to 
open communication with him. They had an old copy of 
the "Penny Cyclopaedia" in the Residency, and from it 
learned the code of signals used in telegraphing before the 
days of the electric telegraph, by the wooden arms of the 
old semaphores. They contrived to construct one, and it 
worked to their satisfaction ; but still it seemed above all 
things desirable to send one of their number to Sir- Colin. 
But to ask any man to dare the risk of passing through the 
Sepoy hordes was impossible. 

A clerk in one of the civil offices, named Thomas Henry 
Kavanagh, offered himself. 

" He was very tall and very fair, — a most difficult man to dis- 
guise, which Sir James Outram represented to him ; but Kava- 
nagh had made up his mind, and willingly offered himself. He 
chose the garb of a native Badmash, — a sort of bushwhacker, a 
soldier who served for plunder. There were many of these in 
the ranks of the rebels. He put on a pair of tight silk trousers, 
fitting closely to the skin, a tight-fitting muslin shirt, and a 
short jacket of yellow silk. Round him he bound a white 
waistband; over his shoulders he threw a colored chintz cloth; 
on his head was a cream-colored turban ; his feet he inserted 
into the slipper-like shoes much worn by the natives of India. 
His face and hands he dyed with oils and lampblack, and he 
cut short his hair. He carried only the sword and buckler 
proper to his character." 

After all kinds of adventures, which he afterwards detailed 
in a small book,i he reached Sir Cohn Campbell. The morn- 
ing after he got into camp. Sir Colin inspected his men. 

" The scene," says one who was present, " was very striking, 
as the htde army was drawn up in the midst of an immense 
plain ; it seemed a mere handful. The guns and battalions 
that had come down from Delhi looked blackened and service- 
worn ; but the horses were in good condition, the harness in 
perfect repair, the men swarthy, and evidently in good fighting 
trim. The Ninth Lancers, with their blue uniforms and white 
turbans twisted round their forage-caps, their flagless lances, 
lean but hardy horses, and gallant bearing, looked the perfection 

^ Now not to be obtained. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 307 

of a cavalry regiment on active service. Wild and bold was the 
carriage of the Sikh cavalry, riding untamed-looking steeds, 
clad in loose fawn-colored robes, with long boots, blue or red 
turbans and sashes, and armed with carbine and sabre. Next 
to them were the wasted remains of the Eighth and Seventy- 
fifth, clad entirely in slate-colored cloth. With a wearied air, 
they stood grouped around their standards, — war stripped of 
its display, in all its nakedness. Then the Second and Fourth 
Punjaub Infantry, tall of stature, with eagle eyes, overhung by 
large twisted turbans, clad in short sand-colored tunics, men 
swift to march and forward in the fight, ambitious both of glory 
and of loot. Last stood, many in number, in tall and serried 
ranks, the Ninety-third Highlanders. A waving sea of plumes 
and tartans they looked as with loud and rapturous cheers they 
welcomed their commander. You saw at once that under him 
they would go anywhere, do anything." 

Sir Colin's plan., after leaving all safe at the Alumbaugh, 
was to make a flank march to the west and get possession 
of a large park called the Dilcoosha, and the Martiniere. 
This plan, by means of Kavanagh, had been agreed upon 
between Sir Colin and Sir James Outram, 

The Alumbaugh had been held for six weeks by a small 
European garrison left in it by Havelock. 

It would be impossible here to describe the fight. I can 
only say the contest was severe, but the plan was carried 
out successfully. Building after building was stormed. 
The Sikhs and Highlanders fought side by side. At one 
moment, when all depended on the successful capture of a 
strong position. Sir Colin gathered his own Highlanders 
about him, and simply told them that the thing itiust be 
done ; he had intended to spare them for the remainder 
of the day, but this thing must be accomplished. He 
himself would lead them. 

Yet again and again the attack seemed to fail. Sud- 
denly a sergeant communicated to his colonel that he had 
fancied he perceived a breach in the wall of the enclosure. 
The colonel and a few men crept round through the brush- 
wood to reconnoitre. They mounted the breach unop- 
posed ; they pushed on to the gate, and opened it to their 



308 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

comrades. The garrison had given up the place. The vic- 
tory was won. Soon Havelock and Outram came riding 
through a storm of bullets to join Sir Colin. It was agreed 
that the relieving army should form, as it were, two lines, 
leaving a passage through narrow lanes out of the Residency. 
Through this passage the women and children passed first 
into Sir Colin's camp on the night of November 25, 1857. 
Then came the sick and wounded. The garrison followed 
the next night. The rebel Sepoys were wholly unconscious 
of the evacuation of the Residency, and continued to fire on 
it long after not a soul was there. The treasure was brought 
away in safety ; the guns were spiked. Not much ammu- 
nition or food remained to be left behind. 

One sad event occurred to cast a gloom over this tri- 
umph. Worn out with toil and anxiety. Sir Henry Have- 
lock died a few hours after reaching the Alumbaugh. 

He was born in the English Dane-laugh, and traced his 
name, Havelock, back to an old Norse king converted by 
Alfred. Very early in life he became an earnest Christian, 
and eventually (though his family belonged to the Church 
of England) he joined the Baptists, having been brought to 
deep religious conviction by a missionary on board the ship 
that carried him to India. 

The glory of his life came to him after he was sixty 
years old ; but he had been preparing himself for it 
forty years, by study, training, self-discipline, and faith- 
ful service. His statue stands now beside Nelson's, in 
Trafalgar Square, as a man whom the English nation 
delights to honor. 

All he had suffered during his imprisonment in the 
Residency had told upon him. He died of dysentery. A 
short time before his death, he heard of his having been 
made Sir Henry Havelock; and greater honors were in 
store for him, of which he did not live to hear. His 
death-bed was all peace, though war was raging round 
him. They buried him beneath the scorching Indian 
sky, hard by the vast city, the scene alike of his toil, his 
triumph, and his death. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 309 

The Queen had promoted him to be a major-general and 
a baronet. The baronetcy descended to his gallant son 
and aide-de-camp, together with a life-pension, granted by 
Parliament, which enables him to keep up the dignity. 

But the army of Sir Colin Campbell had to turn their 
backs as speedily as possible on the grave of Havelock and 
the city of Lucknow. General Windham at Cawnpore had 
been attacked by the troops of Nana Sahib, reinforced by 
the Gwalior contingent, and was in the utmost peril, together 
with the bridge of boats by which alone Sir Colin's army 
could recross the Ganges. 

All day, on the 28th of November, the British force in 
Cawnpore had fought desperately, but hopelessly, and at 
night it was compelled to fall back into intrenchments 
wholly inadequate to give it shelter. 

" The dust of no succoring column could be seen rising from 
the plains of Oude ; and the sullen plunge of the rebel round- 
shot into the river showed how frail was the link, how en- 
dangered was the bridge of boats, that bound us to the shore 
of Oude, whence only succor could come. The clatter of a few 
horsemen was suddenly heard passing over the bridge, and 
ascending to the Fort at a rapid pace. As they came close 
under the ramparts, an old man with gray hair was seen rid- 
ing at their head. One of the soldiers recognized Sir Colin 
Campbell. The news spread like wild fire. The men crowd- 
ing upon the parapet sent forth cheer after cheer. The Sepoys, 
surprised at the commotion, for a few minutes ceased their fire. 
The old man rode in through the gate. All felt then that the 
crisis was over, — that the Residency at Lucknow saved, would 
not now be balanced by Cawnpore lost." 

When the morning broke, the plain towards Lucknow 
was white with the tents of the returning army. The 
British artillery silenced the guns that played upon the 
bridge, and the army commenced its passage. Then 
the rebel troops evacuated Cawnpore, burning up, as they 
did so, before the eyes of the English, all the baggage left 
behind to facilitate a rapid march to and from Lucknow, 
and all the stores collected for the comfort of the destitute 



310 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

women and children. The passage of the bridge was 
a long and very anxious one. The column of women 
and children, sick, wounded, and treasure that Sir Colin 
Campbell's army escorted, reached more than two miles, 
and then, to be in safety, all had to be escorted to 
Allahabad. 

The moment they were out of the way, Sir Colin began 
his work of punishing the Gwalior contingent, ten thousand 
strong, and supplied with all the material of war. He came 
down on their camp by a great detour to the west, while a 
feigned attack on their left and centre kept them from per- 
ceiving what was going on. The Gwalior soldiers were 
utterly routed ; their camp was taken, and all their guns. 
The English cavalry pursued them fourteen miles along the 
high-road. Not a gun, not a tumbril, not a bullock- cart 
escaped. The fugitives, throwing away their arms and 
accoutrements, at last dispersed over the country, hiding in 
the jungle and the grain from the red sabres and lances of 
the horsemen. When the pursuers, late in the evening, 
reined in their weary horses by the fourteenth milestone, 
there was not an enemy in their front. 

And now, Cawnpore relieved from the enemy, Sir 
Cohn and his little army resumed the re-conquest of Oude 
and the final punishment of Lucknow. Troops came from 
Bombay and Madras that cleared the rebels out in Central 
India and drove them into the Hills, 

The reason that Sepoys from the Presidencies of Madras 
and Bombay were more faithful than those of Bengal was 
that they were lower-caste men. The ladies and children 
from Agra reached Cawnpore in safety about three months 
after the rescue of those at Lucknow ; and then Sir Colin, 
collecting such a force as India had never before seen 
under a British general, marched into Oude and advanced 
on Lucknow. 

"Having marched the last day through miles of barren and 
uninteresting country," writes an ofBcer of Fusileers, " we came 
in sight of the camp of the little army of Sir James Outram at 
Alumbaugh, which Sir Colin had left behind when he marched 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 31I 

away with his convoy from Lucknow. There, within those few 
tents, were the gallant men who had held the thousands of 
Oude and the rebel Sepoys in check so long; yet who could 
fancy it was an army encamped before a large city occupied by 
a numerous enemy ? " 

Some one has described Lucknow as the greenest city in 
the world. Its palaces were all surrounded with gardens or 
with topes, that is, groves of trees. When the final attack 
was made, on the 15th of March, just ten months after the 
outbreak of the Mutiny, the troops burst through the Kaiser- 
baugh, a palace larger than Versailles, and then advanced 
towards the Residency. 

The enemy made no stand. Hodson the day before had 
been wounded, and that day he lay dying. Whatever we 
may think of him as a man of honor, he was the idol of the 
troops, who felt that his death made indeed an important 
vacancy. 

Although a few fanatics remained in the city, there was 
no fighting to any extent after the i 7th of March. A week 
later, the townspeople were beginning to return to their 
homes, and civil authority, aided by a powerful police, 
began once more to rule the city of Lucknow. 

It remained to reconstruct the Government of India. 
Poor John Company was swept away. The Queen assumed 
sway as Empress of India, though she did not for many 
years assume the title. The Governor-General became a 
Viceroy. Lord Elgin was the first Viceroy after Lord 
Canning ; the next was Sir John Lawrence, who was raised 
to the peerage in 1869. The natives understood the rule 
of an Empress better than that of a trading company. 

The first thing done by the Government was to extend 
railroads all over the country. India has been peaceful 
ever since, though half-educated natives occasionally grow 
excited, as they become acquainted with European history, 
over the idea that they are not sufificiently admitted to a 
share in the government. 

The people have been, on the whole, prosperous and 
well contented. Old superstitions are dying out. It is said 



312 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

that coolies are now hired to drag the Juggernaut car. 
The number of Christian converts is now great. The seed 
sown by Henry Martyn, Bishop Heber, Dr. Wilham Carey, 
and others is beginning to bring forth fruit an hundredfold. 
Learned men are also beginning to find affinities between 
uncorrupted Buddhism and Christian thought. 

It is not to be denied that, with their passions roused 
to madness by reports — some true, some false — of the 
atrocities practised upon English women and children, 
fierce vengeance was taken by the English soldiers. No 
prisoners were made on either side. Indeed, the English 
had no force with which they could have guarded prisoners. 

After all was over, the faithful were liberally rewarded, 
and the new Government set itself to remedy the mistakes 
made in dealing with the feudal landowners of Oude. 

Lord Canning was long reviled by excited Anglo-Indians 
as " Clemency " Canning. The years that have passed since 
have vindicated his wisdom and right feeling. 

" In that terrible time," says a writer in " All the Year Round," 
"men like Lord Clyde were deeply impressed by the calm 
courage and firmness of Lord Canning. He was magnanimous 
too (a very rare quality), and never attempted, all through the 
storm of obloquy that beat on him, to right himself by blaming 
his countrymen." 

It is true that he did not, like Sir John Lawrence, realize 
at once that the war of the Mutiny was to the English a 
struggle for existence. He was reluctant for some time to 
let a regiment of EngHsh volunteers be raised in Calcutta. 
He restricted the liberty of the Press, both Native and 
English, appalled by the ferocity of Anglo-Indian jour- 
nals. He disarmed civilian Englishmen when he disarmed 
Natives; "and no wonder," says an English writer, "when 
' pandy-potting ' was looked upon by new arrivals in the 
light of an amusement, and when even soldiers of the line 
as they stepped off" their ship would fix bayonets and in the 
Calcutta streets prepare to hunt down ' niggers.' The fact 
is, it was a panic ; and fear is always cruel. Canning had 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 313 

the nerve to do all he could to prevent Englishmen from 
behaving worse than tigers." 

Lord Canning survived his admirable wife only a few 
months. She died at Barrackpore in November, 186 1 ; he 
died the following summer in England. 

The Queen when she assumed the government of India 
issued a proclamation which was received by her Indian 
subjects with gratitude and acclamation. The first draft 
of this proclamation had not been entirely satisfactory to 
the Queen and Prince Albert, who returned it to Lord 
Derby, the Prime Minister, with the following note : — 

" The Queen would be glad if Lord Derby would write it 
himself in his excellent language, bearing in mind that it is a 
female sovereign who speaks to more than a hundred million of 
Eastern people, on assuming the direct government over them, 
and after a bloody war, giving them pledges which her future 
reign is to redeem, and explaining the principles of her govern- 
ment. Such a document should breathe feelings of generosity, 
benevolence, and religious toleration, and point out the privi- 
leges which the people of India will receive by being placed 
on an equality with other subjects of the British Crown, and 
the prosperity following in the train of civilization." 

A noble proclamation was drawn up, in accordance with 
these views. Want of space only prevents me from quoting 
large portions of so admirable a document. 

"It was received," says Colonel Malleson, "by all classes in 
India with the deepest enthusiasm. The princes and land- 
owners especially regarded it as a charter which would render 
their possessions secure, and their rights — more especially the 
right of adoption — absolutely inviolable. The people in general 
welcomed it as the document which closed up the wounds of 
the Mutiny, which declared in effect that bygones were to be 
bygones, and that thenceforth there should be one Queen and 
one people. Many of the rebels still in arms — all, in fact, except 
those absolutely irreconcilable — took advantage of its provisions 
to lay down their arms and submit to its easy conditions. In 
the great towns of India, natives of every religion and creed, 
the Mohammedans, the Parsees, met in numbers to draw up 
loyal addresses expressive of their deep sense of the beneficent 



314 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

feelings which had prompted the proclamation, of their grati- 
tude for its contents, and of their loyalty to the person of the 
illustrious Lady to whose rule they had been transferred." 

And thus ended a conflict which had deluged the country 
with blood, and thus was inaugurated " an era of hope alike 
for the loyal and the misguided, for the prince and the 
peasant, for the owner and for the cultivator, for every class 
and for every creed." 

There is no more heart-stirring account of the siege 
of Lucknow than Tennyson's noble poem. All who may 
read this book doubtless know it well. But there is an 
American ballad on the same subject which moves me 
strangely every time I read it. It is by Robert Lowell, 
brother of James Russell Lowell, and is founded on the 
story of Jessie Brown, once considered apocryphal, but now, 
I believe, substantiated. 

THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. 

Oh, that last day in Lucknow Fort ! 

We knew that it was the last ! 
That the enemy's mines had crept slowly in, 

And the end was coming fast. 

To yield to that foe meant worse than death, 
And the men — and we all — worked on : 

It was one day more of smoke and roar. 
And then it would all be done. 

There was one of us, a corporal's wife, 

A fair young gentle thing. 
Wasted with fever in the siege, 

And her mind was wandering. 

She lay on the ground in her Scottish plaid, 

And I took her head on my knee. 
" When my father comes hame frae the pleugh," she said, 

" Oh, please then waken me ! " 

She slept like a child on her father's floor. 

In the flicking of woodbine shade. 
When the house-dog sprawls by the open door. 

And the mother's wheel is stayed. 



THE INDIAN MUTINY. 315 

It was smoke and roar and powder stench, 

And hopeless waiting for death ; 
But the soldier's wife, like a full-tired child, 

Seemed scarce to draw her breath. 

I sank to sleep, and I had my dream 

Of an English village lane, 
And wall and garden, — a sudden scream 

Brought me back to the roar again. 

There Jessie Brown stood listening, 

And then a broad gladness broke 
All over her face, and she took my hand 

And drew me near and spoke. 

" The Hielanders ! Oh, dinna ye hear 

The slogan far awa ? 
The McGregors ? — aye, I hear it weel ; 

It 's the grandest o' them a'. 

" God bless thae bonny Hielanders ! 

We're saved ! we're saved! " she cried, 
And fell on her knees ; and thanks to God 

Poured forth like a full flood-tide. 

Along the battery-line her cry 

Had fallen among the men, 
And they started ; for they were there to die: 

Was life so near them, then ? 

They listened for life ; and the rattling fire 

Far off, and the far-off roar 
Were all ; and the colonel shook his head; 

And they turned to their guns once more. 

Then Jessie said, " That slogan 's done. 

But do ye no hear them noo ? 
The Campbells are comin'. It 's no a dream ; 

Our succors have broken through ! " 

We heard the roar and the rattle afar. 

But the pipes we could not hear ; 
So the men plied their work of hopeless war, 

And knew that the end was near. 

It was not long ere it ?fiust be heard, 

A shrilling, ceaseless sound ; 
It was no noise of the strife afar, 

Or the sappers underground. 



3l6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH. CENTURY. 

It was the pipes of the Highlanders ! 

And now they played " Auld Lang Syne ! " 
It came to our men like the voice of God, 

And they shouted along the line. 

And they wept, and shook one another's hands ; 

And the women sobbed in a crowd ; 
And every one kneeled down where we stood, 

And we all thanked God aloud ! 

That happy day when we welcomed them 

The men put Jessie first, 
And the General took her hand, — and cheers 

From the men like a volley burst. 

And the pipers' ribbons and tartans streamed. 
Marching round and round our line. 

And our joyful cheers were broken by tears, 
For the pipes played " Auld Lang Syne " ! 



CHAPTER XII. 

DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 

nPHE interesting points in English history during the 
-*- years that immediately preceded the death of Prince 
Albert (made Prince Consort in 1857 by an Order in Coun- 
cil) were all connected with the politics of foreign nations 
or with wars in distant lands. If we read the Life of the 
Prince Consort, in five volumes, written by Sir Theodore 
Martin, under the superintendence of the Queen, we shall 
find that after those great and terrible episodes in English 
history, the Crimean war and the Indian Mutiny, the 
Prince's thoughts were largely occupied with foreign diplo- 
macy. He watched with especial interest and not a little 
apprehension the steps that led to the formation of the 
kingdom of Italy. The Emperor Napoleon III., he said, 
had a mania for map-making ; and his evident intention 
of destroying the provisions of the Treaty of Vienna might, 
he feared, disturb the balance of power on the Continent 
of Europe, and indirectly affect England. 

He did not live to see the unity of Germany under a 
German Emperor, nor even the North German Confedera- 
tion, formed after the Seven Weeks' War, in 1866, which 
ended in the battle of Sadowa. He did not see all Italy 
united into one kingdom, — a change that he appears to have 
deprecated. Up to the moment of his death, he did not see 
how the Pope, as a temporal prince, could be got rid of, — 
nor, apparently, at that time did the Emperor Napoleon, who 
proposed, shortly before Prince Albert's death, to offer His 
Holiness the kingdom of Sardinia in exchange for his sov- 
ereignty in the Eternal City, — a proposition, we may be very 
certain, Pope Pius IX. would never have agreed to. From 
the close of the Crimean war to his death, — that is, for about 



3l8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH . CENTURY. 

six years, — Prince Albert was always uneasy about the inten- 
tions of the French Emperor. He never felt confident that 
he would not some day seek to avenge Waterloo. He mani- 
festly did not like him as a man, and mistrusted him as a 
politician. He did not share his wife's personal attraction 
towards the Emperor, though she seems pleased to record 
that he admired the Empress. Over the Queen, Louis 
Napoleon seems to have exercised that magnetic influence 
that he had it in his power to employ sometimes. Prince 
Albert greatly wronged him in beheving that his professions 
of friendship for England were not sincere. The strongest 
trait in Napoleon's character was his grateful remembrance 
of benefits or kindness. He was until some time after the 
Prince Consort's death faithful to his English alliance, more 
faithful than England was to him ; for all through the his- 
tory of the ten years that succeeded the Crimean war she 
had a diplomatic leaning towards Austria. 

Before I enter on a life of which the Princess Alice says, 
" A married life like my father's was a whole long lifetime, 
though only two-and-twenty years," I will mention briefly a 
few of the events that most interested the pubHc from the 
close of the last chapter, in 1858, to the sad event which 
gives its name to this, in 1861. 

When Orsini exploded his bombs in the Rue Lepelletier 
under the carriage of the Emperor Napoleon, he doubtless 
did not foresee that they would do more damage in England 
than in France, though there they killed or wounded one 
hundred and sixty-eight people. Orsini had made his 
escape from an Austrian prison, and had published a book 
about it which had created much sympathy for him in Eng- 
land. He was handsome, in the long-haired, dark-eyed, 
sentimental style. He gave lectures in England, and per- 
suaded himself that the interest he succeeded in exciting 
for himself extended to the cause in which he was engaged. 
He remained in England over a year, feted as a sort of 
popular hero ; then he went over to Paris, calling himself 
Mr. Alsop, leaving a scientific man, Dr. Simon Barnard, in 
London, to make his bombs. 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 319 

After the explosion, when the police began inquiries 
into the antecedents of Orsini, it was discovered he had 
many friends in England, and it was at once assunaed in 
France that England encouraged the assassination of un- 
popular sovereigns, and offered a safe asylum to murderous 
plotters. 

We all know that in England or America no foreigner 
simply accused of political crime can be surrendered to his 
Government ; but in France, where the police can march 
any suspicious person over the frontier, this state of things 
in England was not understood. If the state neither pun- 
ished nor prevented such attempts at regicide, it was, the 
French argued, because the English people were glad to 
connive at having a French Emperor assassinated. 

Addresses were sent up to the Emperor and Empress 
from every part of France, especially from the army. One 
regiment declared that it longed to demand an account 
from the nation it described as " that land of impunity, which 
contains the haunts of monsters who are sheltered by its 
laws." The soldiers implored the Emperor to give them 
his orders, and they "would pursue them even to their 
strongholds." In another address it was urged that that 
repaii-e infdme (den of infamy), London, to wit, "where 
plots so infernal were permitted to be hatched, should be 
destroyed forever." 

Unfortunately, these intemperate expressions of rage were 
inserted in the " Moniteur," where nothing, it is supposed, is 
published but what is approved by the Government. By this 
means the Enghsh people were quite as much roused against 
the French as the French against the English. Indeed, this 
matter broke up, not only friendliness between the two 
nations, but the cordial relations between the royal and im- 
perial families. Queen Victoria and the Emperor Napoleon 
were never the same to each other from that day forward. 
Nor was this all : Dr. Barnard was arrested, — "a thin, 
worn man, with dark, restless eyes, a sallow complexion, a 
thick moustache, and a profusion of long black hair combed 
backward, and reaching nearly to his shoulders, exposing a 



320 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

low, but broad and retreating, forehead." He was tried 
upon some trivial charge which brought him within the 
grasp of the law of England ; but he was triumphantly 
acquitted, English sentiment insisting that no man should 
be tried in England and found guilty at the bidding of any 
foreign monarch. "The pubUc mind upon this point," says 
Justin McCarthy, " was analogous to that of old General 
Jackson, who, on one occasion, came near refusing, with one 
of his bursts of wrath, a perfectly reasonable, and courteous, 
request, from the French Government, because his secretary, 
on translating the despatch which began, ' Le gouvernement 
Fran^ais demande,' gave the words, " The French Govern- 
ment demands.' With his usual shower of eccentric oaths, 
old Jackson burst out with the declaration that if the French 
Government dared to demand anything from the United 
States, they should not get it ! And it took a good while to 
make him understand that demander in French by no means 
meant demand. ^^ 

Lord Palmerston, who had been made Prime Minister at 
the height of the Crimean war, had introduced a very mild 
and apparently reasonable measure into Parliament to com- 
pel foreigners engaged in plotting against the lives of foreign 
sovereigns to leave the country. But the bill was thrown 
out by an enormous majority ; and Dr. Barnard remained 
unpunished, to furnish more bombs to conspirators, if he 
thought proper, in security. But Lord Palmerston was 
thrown out of office ; the ministry that had brought the 
Crimean war to a close, and had dealt triumphantly with 
the Indian Mutiny, lost the confidence of the country. 
Twice had Lord Palmerston's friendship for Louis Napoleon 
lost him his official position. A Tory ministry, under Lord 
Derby and Mr. Disraeli, came into office for sixteen months. 
But on the point of right of asylum for political offenders 
the English are very sensitive. " When Lord Palmerston 
had been accused of arrogance abroad, he had been ' dear 
old Pam ' to the normal Englishman ; but when he was 
foolishly conceived to have unduly yielded an inch to France, 
there came instantly to his opponents the opportunity of 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 321 

turning him out of office, — which his opponents were not 
slow to do." 

Prince Albert, writing to Baron Stockmar at this time, 
says : 

" Here we are in the middle of a ministerial crisis and of a 
bad state of matters in politics. Lord Palmerston, who only two 
days ago had a majority, has been hit upon the French question. 
For this we have to thank the heedlessness of Louis Napoleon, 
who ought to have known better than to suffer England to be 
insulted by his colonels. The excitement in this country is 
tremendous, and at this moment Lord Palmerston is the most 
unpopular of men. It is quite ludicrous to hear his old wor- 
shippers talk of him. In the Lower House they would scarcely 
let him open his mouth, but regularly hooted him down. . . . 
Twenty thousand people assembled in Hyde Park yesterday, 
with the cry, ' Down with the French ! ' When this excitement 
has passed off, reason will assert itself." 

By degrees feeling subsided, both in France and England, 
as to the Conspiracy Bill ,■• and the Emperor endeavored to 
" make up " by sending Marshal Pelissier, Duke of Malakoff, 
as ambassador to England, to replace Persigny, who had 
proved himself too fiery. But there was for some time talk 
of a possible French invasion, for which the country ought 
to be prepared. Volunteer companies were organized all 
over England, and there was much drilling, amateur soldier- 
ing, and military enthusiasm. The Volunteer system has 
been kept up and improved until the present day, and now 
forms an efficient army of two hundred and nineteen thou- 
sand men. 

The other little episode — of which I should like to give 
a more extended account than is here permitted — concerns 
the restoration of the " Resolute " to Her Majesty by the 
President of the United States in the summer of 1856. 

Sir John Franklin sailed on his last expedition in search of 
the Northwest Passage in the spring of 1845. By 1849, ex- 
peditions were being fitted out in search of him. In 1852, 
Sir Edward Belcher, an experienced Arctic navigator, sailed 
with four ships, — the " Resolute," " Intrepid," "Pioneer," 



322 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and " Assistance." The same year, Captain McClure in 
the " Investigator " entered the Arctic seas by Behring's 
Straits. Both parties were frozen up in the ice in the winter 
of 1853-54, within fifty miles of each other, and remained 
so all winter, until in the spring a party from the " Investi- 
gator," hunting on the ice, was amazed to see men in the 
distance, who proved to be their countrymen from Sir 
Edward Belcher's ships. Thus by walking over the ice for 
fifty miles was made the Northwest Passage. But it was 
decided to abandon the ships frozen fast in the ice, and 
both parties made their way to Beechy Island. The " Reso- 
lute " was swept clean, left in good order, and her men 
sadly deserted her in September, 1854. 

In April, 1855, an American whaler, in latitude 67° (a 
thousand miles .from where the "Resolute" had been for- 
saken by her crew), came in sight of an enormous ice-floe, 
in the midst of which was the " Resolute," firmly imbedded. 
The American captain stayed by the floe till it broke up, 
and then took possession of the vessel. The English 
Government having put in no claim to the rescued vessel. 
Congress bought it of its captors, spent ^40,000 to put it in 
perfect repair, and then sent it to England under the com- 
mand of a United States captain, an old Arctic explorer, as a 
present to the Queen. The " Resolute " was a poor sailer. 
She had a thirty days' passage across the Atlantic, and 
had a narrow escape from being wrecked on the rocks of 
the Scilly Isles. She was received with all kinds of honors 
at Portsmouth, and a royal salute was fired for her as a 
compliment to the sovereign people. The Queen, Prince 
Albert, and the Prince of Wales went on board of her, and 
the Queen was received by the captain with a very pretty 
address : — 

" Will Your Majesty permit me, in accordance with the 
wishes of my countrymen, and in obedience to the orders of 
my Government, to restore to Your Majesty the ship ' Resolute,' 
not only as a mark of friendly feeling towards Your Majesty's 
Government, but as a token of love, admiration, and respect for 
Your Majesty." 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 323 

This was well done for a man who at first had requested 
not to be sent in command of the " Resolute," saying, 
" I cannot dance, I cannot speak, I cannot sing. I am, 
therefore, not the man to be sent on such a service." 

Sir Theodore Martin opens his fifth volume of the Prince 
Consort's Life by saying : — 

" ' I have been long persuaded,' observes Milton, ' that to 
say or do aught worthy of imitation or memory, no purpose 
should sooner move us than simply the love of God and of man- 
kind ; ' and in this spirit the Prince Consort lived and acted. 
Any rule good for all men, he felt, was especially incumbent 
upon him, placed as he was in a position where his influence 
and example, whether for good or evil, must of necessity be 
greater than that of ordinary men. Speaking in one of his let- 
ters of being misunderstood, he says, ' I must console myself 
with the consciousness that from my heart I mean well towards 
all mankind, and have never done them aught but good, and 
take my stand on truth and reason.' " 

Sir Charles Phipps, whose position in the royal house- 
hold brought him for years into many hours' daily commu- 
nication with Prince Albert, says in a private letter : — 

" The principle of right was so firmly and immovably rooted 
in the Prince, and its influence was ever so present in his every 
thought, that I am quite sure he never spoke or answered a 
question without having made instantaneous reference in his 
thoughts to that principle. His every word, his every act, was 
but a portion of one great resolution to do what was right, and 
to endeavor to do it with the greatest possible kindness and 
tenderness to others. To hear of a good action in anybody, 
from a young child up to a great statesman, was a positive 
enjoyment to him, — a joy which was visibly seen in his 
countenance." 

Mr. Gladstone has said : — 

" The excellence of the Prince's character has become a 
commonplace, almost a by-word, among us. It is easy to run 
round the circle of his virtues, difficult to find a place where the 
line is not continuous. No doubt he was eminently happy in 
the persons who from without contributed to develop his capac 



324 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ities, — his uncle, his tutor, and his wife. But how completely 
did the material answer to every touch that it received ! How 
nearly the life approximated to an ideal ! . . . His biographer has 
been impugned by one reviewer for the uniformity of his lauda- 
tory tone. Now, doubtless it would be too much to expect a 
drastic criticism of the Prince's intellect in a work produced 
under the auspices of an adoring affection ; but an honest im- 
partiality prompts us to ask whether in the ethical picture here 
presented to us there really is any trait that calls for censure ? 
If there is anything in the picture of the Prince that directly 
irritates the critical faculty, is it not 

'that fine air, 
That pure serenity of perfect light,' 

which was insipid to Queen Guinivere in the heyday of her 
blood, but to which she did homage when the equilibrium of her 
nature was restored ? " 

We all know now that that character of King Arthur, in 
the " Idyls of the King," was drawn from Prince Albert. But 
he did not know it when, after the first instalment of the 
book had been published, he wrote the following letter to 
Tennyson : — 

My dear Mr. Tennyson, — Will you forgive me if I intrude 
upon your leisure with a request I have thought some little time 
of making, viz., that you would be good enough to write your 
name in the accompanying volume of your " Idyls of the King " ? 
You would thus add a peculiar interest to the book containing 
those beautiful lays, from the perusal of which I derived the 
greatest enjoyment. They quite rekindle the feelings with which 
the legends of King Arthur must have inspired the chivalry of 
old, while the graceful form in which they are presented blends 
those feelings with the softer tone of our present age. 

Believe me always yours truly, 

Albert. 

He loved the book to the last, and on the Crown 
Princess of Prussia's last visit to England before his 
death he pointed out passages for which he wanted her 
to make illustrations. 

It was thinking of all this that Tennyson, on issuing 
the later books of the Idyls, which treat more fully of King 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 325 

Arthur, says, writing after Prince Albert's death, in a Dedi- 
cation to his memory, — 

" Since he held them dear, 
Perchance as finding there, unconsciously. 
Some image of himself." 

We have already seen in his letter to the Duke of Welling- 
ton his own conception of his position in England, — adviser 
and private secretary to the Queen, doing for her all those 
offices which she could not undertake as a female sovereign ; 
patron of arts and learning ; the Queen's natural represen- 
tative in works of social improvement and philanthropy ; 
responsible to England, as also to God, for the training of 
the royal children ; master of his household ; the stay, the 
prop, and the companion of the Queen. 

Knowing how easily scandal grows out of nothing, in a 
court circle, he took the precaution of being never alone. 
If he went anywhere, he was always accompanied by some 
member of his family, or by one of his equerries. Indeed, 
he had to set up an extra equerry, to lighten the burden of 
this service. 

He considered it his duty to take pains to know. Noth- 
ing with him was slighted. " If he spoke to a painter, a 
sculptor, or an architect," says Sir Charles Phipps, " a man 
of science, or an ordinary tradesman, each would receive an 
impression that the speciality in the Prince's mind was his 
own pursuit." 

There are many illustrations of this on record. 

One day a great glass manufacturer, coming to the palace 
to see about some chandeliers, remarked, when the Prince 
had left the room, " That is wonderful ! He knows more 
about glass than I do ; " adding, " That is a man one cannot 
like, one must love him." 

Not only does the world owe the idea of International 
Exhibitions to Prince Albert, but he gave an immense 
impulse to popular sympathy and interest in the working- 
classes, — to that desire to provide them better houses, Me- 
chanics' Institutes, Club-houses, Friendly Inns, Young Men's 
Christian Associations, etc., which is a popular form of 



326 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

philanthropy at the present day. He also took great inter- 
est in everything that related to landscape gardening and 
the musical education of the masses. 

Under the Prince's influence " there grew up in the midst 
of the most brilliant court in Europe a domestic family life 
so perfect in its purity and charm that it might well serve for 
a bright example to every home in the land." And we have 
all been privileged to look into that home-hfe as probably 
we are hardly permitted to do into any family home-life but 
our own. The exceeding frankness of the Queen, and her 
desire for her people's sympathy, intensified by the loneli- 
ness of her exalted station, has permitted us to read their 
thoughts, to see their endearments, to share their occupa- 
tions, and to watch their lives. " You must remember," the 
Queen writes to Princess Alice concerning the Memoirs of 
her father, " that endless false and untrue things have been 
said and written about us, public and private, and that in 
these days people will write and will know ; therefore, the 
only way to counteract this is to let the real full truth be 
known, and as much told as can be told with prudence and 
discretion ; and then no harm, but good, will be done. Noth- 
ing will help me more than that my people should see what 
I have lost." " And the Queen," adds a reviewer, " evidently 
wishes it to be widely known that the better members of the 
royal caste work no less hard, and have, probably, on the 
whole, fewer enjoyments, than statesmen, professional men, 
or others not immediately connected with what are called 
par excellence the ' working-classes.' " 

Here is a letter from Prince Albert to his daughter, the 
Crown Princess of Prussia, which gives an idea of his 
various labors, — the outside duties that crowded in upon 
the regular labors of the day. It is written eighteen months 
before his death, from Osborne, in May, i860. 

"Your letter of the 20th has found me in the enjoyment of 
the most glorious air, tlie most fragrant odors, the merriest 
choir of birds, and the most luxuriant verdure; and were there 
not so many things that remind one of the so-called ' world ' 
(that is to say, of miserable men), one might abandon oneself 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 327 

wholly to the enjoyment of the real world. There is no such 
good fortune, however, for poor me; and, this being so, one's 
feelings remain upon the treadmill of never-ending business. 
The donkey in Carisbrooke Castle, which you will remember, 
is my counterpart. He, too, would rather munch thistles in the 
castle moat than turn round in the wheel at the castle well ; and 
small are the thanks he gets for his labor. I am tortured, too, by 
the prospect of two public dinners, at which I am, or rather shall 
be, in the chair. The one gives me seven, the other ten toasts 
and speeches, appropriate to the occasion, but distracting to 
myself. Then I have to resign at Oxford the Presidency of 
the British Association, and later in the season to open the 
Statistical Congress of All Nations. Between these come the 
laying the foundation-stone of the Dramatic College ; the dis- 
tribution of the prizes at Wellington College, etc., etc. ; and this 
with the sittings of my different commissions. Ascot Races the 
delectable, and the balls and concerts of the season, all crowded 
into the month of June, over and above the customary business 
which a distracted state of affairs in Europe and a stormy Par- 
liament . . . make still more burdensome and disagreeable than 
usual. Some successes, however, gladden me." 

At this time, too, it was arranged that the Prince of 
Wales, accompanied by the Duke of Newcastle, should 
make a tour in Canada and the United States. 

With so high a moral standard himself, Prince Albert was 
perhaps less indulgent than some parents might have been 
to the young man's irregularities ; but the Prince of Wales, 
at almost the same age his father was when he came to 
England, was a different man. Probably no private person 
can estimate the difficulties that beset the position of a 
young heir-apparent, and in many respects the Prince of 
Wales has filled his with exceptional self-restraint and 
ability. 

The Prince, under his father's careful superintendence, 
had received his education at three Universities, — Oxford, 
Cambridge, and Edinburgh. He had also received some 
military training in Ireland. It was now thought desirable 
that he should visit the American colonies, and President 
Buchanan at Washington. 

His journey was an entire success. "God bless his 



328 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

handsome face and send him a good wife ! " cried the 
wives of the Newfoundland fishermen. 

In Canada, the Prince had his first experience in presid- 
ing at public ceremonies. He laid the foundation-stone 
of the Parhament House at Ottawa, and inaugurated the 
magnificent Victoria Bridge at Montreal. He travelled as 
Baron Renfrew, — rather to the disappointment of colonists 
and republicans, who would have liked him to bear all his 
titles. 

When the party visited Chicago, it is rather amusing to 
find the Duke of Newcastle expatiating on that marvellous 
city, which in twenty years had acquired a population of 
seventy thousand ! 

When at Washington, the Prince visited Mount Vernon ; 
and the great-grandson of George HI. stood bareheaded at 
the tomb of Washington. 

Among the duties of Prince Albert during that busy 
June of the year i860 there were great reviews to be 
attended of the ardent Volunteers, twenty thousand of 
whom were reviewed by the Queen and Prince in Hyde 
Park, and did themselves much credit by their appearance 
and manoeuvres. 

On January 27, 1859, William, the reigning Emperor of 
Germany, and eldest grandchild of the Queen and Prince 
Albert, was born; and in July, i860, a Uttle princess was 
added to the royal family of Prussia. Loving letters from 
the home circle at Windsor greeted '* these kindly gifts 
from Heaven." 

Another gleam of joy came, too, in these days from the 
Prussian court, — a letter from the Crown Princess, written a 
few days before the arrival of her little daughter, breaking 
to her father and mother the desire of Prince Louis of 
Hesse, heir to the Grand Duchy of Darmstadt, to become 
the suitor of Princess Alice ; but he feared lest the lady he 
had fallen in love with might not regard his suit with favor. 
Thereupon, Princess Alice was consulted, and proved not 
indisposed to favor the hopes of Prince Louis. She was the 
pearl of the family, — though perhaps the least handsome. 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 329 

Here is the father's letter to his daughter, the Crown 
Princess, on this happy occasion. 

" Only two words of joy can I offer to the dear newly made 
mother, and these come from an overflowing heart. The little 
daughter is a kindly gift from Heaven that will, I trust, procure 
for you many happy hours in the days to come. The telegraph 
speaks only of your doing well. May this be so in the fullest 
sense ! Upon the subject of your last interesting and most im- 
portant letter, I have replied to Fritz, who will communicate to 
you as much of my answer as is good for you under present cir- 
cumstances. Alice is very grateful for your love and kindness for 
her, and the young man behaves in a manner truly admirable." 

Death, however, this year was busy in the German part of 
the royal family. Aunt Julie (or Juliana), of Saxe-Coburg, 
died. She had been the wife of the Grand-Duke Constan- 
tine of Russia, and had separated from him on account of his 
brutality. Many years after, he purchased from the heads 
of the Russian Church a legal divorce, by renouncing his 
rights as heir-presumptive of the Russian throne. He 
then married a Polish lady, Janetta Grudzinska, created 
Princess of Lowicz, to whom he was ardently attached. 
His first wife led a faded life in Switzerland and Coburg ; 
" but she retained," says Prince Albert, " her vivacity of 
mind and feeling, her vital freshness and amiability, to the 
last." The Dowager- Duchess of Coburg also died, one 
of the two grandmothers who had had charge of Prince 
Albert and his brother in their motherless youth. Deaths, 
like misfortunes, seldom come as " single spies, but in 
battalions." 

As we read the meilioirs of the last two years of Prince 
Albert's life, and see how all the thoughts of statesmen were 
devoted to the solution of questions concerning Italy, the 
Pope, Austria, United Germany, and Hungary, all of which 
in a few years happily solved themselves, we are reminded 
of how Carlyle warns us about the uselessness of worrying : 
since of things left undone, part will never require to be 
done ; part had better not be done ; and part, without our 
assistance, will do themselves. 



330 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Early in the autumn of i860 the Queen and Prince 
Albert had a dehghtful hoUday. They crossed over into 
Germany, and spent two happy weeks at Coburg. Their 
dear daughter the Crown Princess of Prussia was with them 
with her baby. " There is no doubt that Prince Albert's 
heart was with his own people, that Windsor Castle was no 
more a compensation to him for Rosenau than it had been 
to William III. for Loo ; and that everything except the 
welfare of England was subordinate to his desire for the 
prosperity of Germany, and the fortunes in particular of his 
own family." This was no fault in the Prince, but rather 
strengthens our sense of his power of renunciation. There 
can be no question of his entire fidelity to England ; 
"But," says a reviewer, "it would explain why an instinc- 
tive sense of this made him unjustly distrusted by the Eng- 
lish people," — a distrust that has always puzzled those 
who, not seeing him through the haze of prejudice which 
in England surrounds a foreigner, hold him to be the 
greatest acquisition (if we except William III.) ever made 
by the court of England. 

During his three weeks' stay at Coburg the Prince came 
near meeting with a fearful accident. The horses in his 
barouche ran away, and, undeterred by the fatal example of 
the Duke of Orleans, he jumped from his carriage. Happily 
he was not very badly injured, and only had to keep his 
room for a couple of days. But on their return to England 
the Queen wrote thus to the Keeper of her Privy Purse : 

"... The Queen comes now to the subject which she has 
mentioned to no one yet, but about which she has quite made 
up her mind. Perhaps from the Queen's calmness at the time, 
and her anxiety that no one should think the Prince was seri- 
ously hurt, as well as to prevent her dear brother and host, the 
Duke of Coburg, from being more distressed than he already 
was, Sir Charles Phipps may have thought that the Queen did 
not fully admit the awfulness of the danger which her dear hus- 
band had been exposed to, or the providential escape he had 
from all really serious injury; but it is when the Queen feels most 
deeply that she always appears calmest, and she could not, and 
dared not, allow herself to speak of what might have been, or even 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 33 1 

to admit to herself (and she cannot and dare not now) the entire 
danger ; for her head would turn. It is necessity and principle 
that the Queen should act thus on all occasions of danger ; and 
she thinks it right." 

A fund was therefore placed at the disposition of the 
town of Coburg, as the Queen's thank-offering for her hus- 
band's escape. It was called the Victoria Fund, and its 
object was to assist young men and women in the lower 
walks of life, apprenticing the former, or buying tools for 
them ; giving marriage portions or educational advantages 
to the latter. " I am thinking of it day and night," adds 
the Queen, "till it is done." 

The Duke of Newcastle reported that the tour of the 
Prince of Wales in the British Provinces and the United 
States had been an entire success. " Everywhere," he says, 
" the utmost order prevailed ; and indeed nothing could 
be more remarkable than the mixture of interest and good- 
humored curiosity everywhere displayed, with respect and 
desire to conform to the expressed wish to avoid outward 
demonstrations." 

President Buchanan wrote a letter to the Queen, which 
Lord Palmerston characterized as doing equal honor to the 
good feelings and just appreciation of the person who wrote 
it and to the royal personage to whom it refers. 

The Queen replied in an equally cordial and creditable 
letter. The young Prince reached home early in Novem- 
ber. The Duke of Newcastle received the Order of the 
Garter. 

In December, the Empress Eugenie crossed over to 
Osborne and paid a brief, informal visit incognita ; but it was 
a great change from the days of mutual delight and satisfac- 
tion that attended her earlier intercourse with the English 
royal family. " She was thin and pale," writes the Queen, 
" but as kind, as amiable, and as natural as she had always 
been." 

From this December dates Prince Albert's failing health. 
He was fast breaking down, and indeed may be said to 
have never had a day of perfect health again. The Christmas 



332 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was brightened by the happmess of the young affianced 
couple, Princess Alice and Prince Louis, of which Prince 
Albert says, " AUce and Louis are as happy as mortals can 
be, and I need hardly say that that makes my heart as a 
father glad." 

Here I abridge from Sir Theodore Martin's book an 
account of the Prince's manner of life and his daily 
occupations. 

He rose early, and by the time most people in the palace 
were stirring, he had made good progress in the day's labors. 
Summer or winter, he was up at seven, dressed, and went to 
his sitting-room, where in winter a fire was burning, and a 
green-shaded student's lamp was lit. He read and answered 
letters, never allowing his immense correspondence to fall 
into arrears, and prepared drafts for the Queen's considera- 
tion on matters of importance. The last paper he drew up 
in this way was on the eve of his last illness, on the Slidell 
and Mason affair. He brought it to the Queen, Decem- 
ber I, 1 86 1, at 8 A. M.,- having risen to write it, ill and 
suffering as he was, saying as he gave it to her, " I am so 
weak I could scarcely hold the pen." 

From eight till breakfast-time he read over fresh letters 
and despatches, already read over by the Queen and placed 
by her, ready for his perusal, on the table in his sitting- 
room. Every morning the leading newspapers were placed 
for him on a table near the breakfast-table. He would read 
out loud to the Queen, as they breakfasted, any interesting 
item or particularly good article. 

In his early married life he and the Queen walked to- 
gether after breakfast till ten, except on the days he went 
out shooting ; later, the daily walk was after ten. His step, 
his wife records, was quick and active along the passages or 
on the stairs. If he went out shooting (his only real 
amusement), he was always home by luncheon-time. " He 
never went out or came home," records the Queen, 
"without coming through my room or into my dressing- 
room, with a smile, saying, if I were dressing, ' Sehr schon,' 
or something kindly; and I treasure up everything I 




PRINCESS ALICE. 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 333 

heard to tell him, and kept every letter or despatch to show 
him ; and I was always vexed or nervous if I had any foolish 
draft or despatch to put before him, as I knew it would dis- 
tress or irritate him and affect his delicate stomach." 

Even in moments of so-called recreation his brain could 
have had little rest. The day was too short for all the claims 
on his attention, and his frequent attacks of illness, in them- 
selves slight, showed his body was growing weaker, while 
every day increased the strain upon his mind. In every 
direction his counsel and help were sought. In the royal 
household, in his family circle, among his numerous kins- 
folks, at home and abroad, his judgment and guidance were 
being constantly appealed to. Every enterprise of national 
importance claimed his attention, and in all things that con- 
cerned the welfare of England at home and abroad his 
accurate and varied knowledge and his political sagacity 
made him looked to as an authority by leading statesmen. 
But all this fatigue of body and brain did not deprive him 
of his natural cheerfulness. " At breakfast and luncheon," 
says his wife, " and also at our family dinners, he sat at the top 
of the table, and kept us all enlivened by droll stories of his 
childhood or his Coburg life, and by his other interesting 
conversation. He told a story with great power of mimicry, 
and would laugh most heartily. Then he would entertain 
us with talk about the most interesting and important topics 
of the present or former days, on which it was ever a pleas- 
ure to hear him speak." 

Early in the year King Frederick William of Prussia, 
whose mind had been failing for some years, died. His 
brother, who had been Regent during his illness, succeeded 
him, and in the course of events became Emperor of Ger- 
many. In consequence of the death of the King, the 
Princess Royal of England became Crown Princess of 
Prussia. She was beside the old man on his deathbed. 

At the close of the month Dr. Baly, the Prince Consort's 
physician, was killed in an accident on a railroad, — a most 
terrible loss to the country, as it proved, for he had long 
known and understood the constitution of the Prince, who 



ll\ ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

now, just as his health was failing, had to put himself into 
new hands. 

February lo was kept by the Queen and Prince as the 
twenty-first anniversary of their wedding. It was celebrated 
quietly, for the day was Sunday. " Very few wives can say, 
with me," writes the Queen to her uncle, "that their hus- 
bands at the end of twenty-one years are not only full of 
the friendship, kindness, and affection which a truly happy 
marriage brings with it, but of the same tender love as in 
the first days of marriage. We missed dear Mamma and 
three of our children, but had six dear ones round us, and 
assembled with us in the evening those of our household who 
had been with us then." 

As we read the record of the Prince's hfe and the Queen's, 
it is pleasant to find them reading the books we read and 
love. Besides history of the graver sort, and poetry, the 
Prince found relaxation in novels. We read of his plea- 
sure and the Queen's in all George Eliot's books, in 
Kingsley's stories, and in his "Saint's Tragedy." Some 
volume of Sir Walter Scott was kept always on hand, and 
read when he was too tired to read what was less dear 
and familiar. 

In February, 1861, the Duchess of Kent had been staying 
with the royal family at Buckingham Palace. The Queen 
and Prince then went to Osborne House for ten days' quiet, 
and the Duchess returned to Frogmore, near Windsor Castle, 
her own home. Suddenly Sir George Couper, her secretary 
and controller of her household and affairs, died, after two 
days' illness. Prince Albert writes : — 

" The poor Mamma's health has not been injured by the shock; 
she feels the loss deeply, and will feel it more as time goes on. 
She has had much to suffer of late, her right arm being greatly 
swollen and very painful, which puts a stop to her writing, work- 
ing, or playing on the piano, and she cannot read much, or bear 
to be read to long at a time. She is to come to us in town when 
we return there on Friday. She will not go back to Clarence 
House, and with the children about her she will have more to 
amuse her. '' 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 335 

But the days of the poor Duchess were numbered. She 
was suffering from an abscess in her arm, for which she had 
an operation, and her strength gave way under the strain of 
pain. The Queen and Prince were suddenly summoned. 
The story of her deathbed is very touching, as told by the 
Queen : — 

"With a trembling heart, I went up the staircase and entered 
the bedroom ; and here, on a sofa supported by cushions, the 
room much darkened, sat, leaning back, my beloved mother, 
breathing rather heavily, in her silk dressing-gown, with her cap 
on, looking quite herself. One of those about her said, 'The 
end will be easy.' Oh, what agony — what despair was this! 
Seeing that our presence did not disturb her, I knelt down and 
kissed her dear hand, and placed it next my cheek ; but though 
she opened her eyes, she did not, I think, know me. She brushed 
my hand off; and the dreadful reality was before me, that for 
the first time she did not know the child she had ever received 
with such tender smiles. I went out to sob. I asked the doc- 
tors if there was no hope? They said. they feared none what- 
ever, for consciousness had left her. It was suffusion of water 
on the brain that had come on. As the night wore on into 
morning, I lay down on the sofa at the foot of my bed, where at 
least I could lie still. I heard each hour strike, the cocks crow, 
the dogs barking in the distance. Every sound seemed to strike 
into my inmost soul. At four I went down again. All still; 
nothing was to be heard but the heavy breathing, and the strik- 
ing at every quarter of the old repeater, — a large watch in a 
tortoiseshell case which had belonged to my poor father, — the 
sound of which brought back all the recollections of my child- 
hood; for I always used to hear it at night, but had not heard 
it for twenty-three years. I remained kneeling and standing by 
that beloved parent, whom it seemed too awful to see hopelessly 
leaving me. . . . Then,at the last, Albert took me out of the room 
for a short time ; but I could not remain. When I returned, the 
window was wide open, and both doors. I sat on a footstool, 
holding her dear hand. Meantime the face grew paler (though 
in truth her cheeks had the pretty fresh color they always had 
to the last). The breathing became easier. I fell on my knees, 
holding the beloved hand that was still soft and warm, though 
heavier. I felt as if my heart would break. Convulsed with 
sobs, I fell upon the dear hand when all breathing ceased, and 
covered it with kisses. Albert lifted me up, and took me into 



336 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the next room, himself entirely melted into tears, which is 
unusual for him, deep as his feelings are. He clasped me in his 
arms. I asked if all was over. He said, 'Yes.' 

" O God ! — how awful — how mysterious ! But what a 
blessed end ! Her gentle spirit at rest, her sufferings over. 
But I — I, wretched child, who had lost the mother I so ten- 
derly loved, from whom for these forty-one years I had never 
been parted, except for a few weeks ! My childhood — every- 
thing — seemed to crowd upon me. I seemed to have lived 
through a life, — to have become old." 

The Duchess left Prince Albert her executor, and this 
entailed on him great and harassing labor ; for Sir George 
Couper, who had managed her affairs for thirty years, 
having just died, nobody could tell him anything, and he 
had to work out everything for himself, as it were, in the 
dark. 

"Besides the shock of losing one so dear, the strain of sub- 
duing his own emotions, that he might the better sustain and 
comfort the Queen in this the first great sorrow of her life, the 
Prince was compelled to take upon himself at this time more 
than his wonted labors in lightening for Her Majesty the daily 
and hourly duties of communication with her ministers. Then 
all the painful and harassing labors which devolved on him, 
as the Duchess' executor, of examining the papers and corre- 
spondence, accumulations during a long and busy life, had to be 
carefully looked over, the claims of kinsfolk and of old retainers 
had to be adjusted; and all these things aggravated his fatigue. 
He bore everything without a murmur in this time of great 
family distress, giving fresh proofs of his patient, cheerful, and 
considerate spirit, thinking for all, and feeling for all, — toil, 
trial, and disappointment seeming only to ripen his character 
into fuller beauty." 

The bright spot in these sad days was the presence of the 
Crown Princess of Prussia, who hurried over to England to 
comfort her mother and father in their grief, and was with 
them ten days. Prince Albert writes to Baron Stockmar 
of the Queen : — 

" Her mind is greatly upset. She feels her whole childhood 
rush back once more upon her memory; and with these recollec- 
tions comes the thought of many a sad hour. Her grief is 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 337 

extreme, and she feels acutely the loss of one whom she cher- 
ished and tended with affectionate and dutiful devotion. For 
the last two years her constant care and occupation have been 
to keep watch over her mother's comfort, and the influence of 
this upon her own character has been most valuable. In body 
she is well, though terribly nervous, and the children are a dis- 
turbance to her. She remains almost entirely alone. You may 
conceive it was, and is, no easy task for me to comfort and sup- 
port her, and to keep others at a distance, and yet at the same 
time not to throw away the opportunity which a time like the 
present affords of binding the family together in a closer bond 
of unity. With business I am well-nigh overwhelmed. . . ." 

A little later, in the month of May, Prince Louis of Hesse 
came courting to Osborne, and Uncle Leopold of Belgium 
and his second son came too. The two Princes caught the 
measles, and had to be nursed through a severe illness, the 
Belgian Prince being dangerously ill. AH, indeed, in that 
year seemed to go wrong in Europe, and with us were the 
early months of a fratricidal war. 

The last public occasion in which the Prince was prom- 
inent was on the 5 th of June, when he opened the Royal 
Horticultural Gardens to the public. The pallid, worn look 
of his face was then remarked upon. The next day came 
news of the death of Cavour. 

All through the summer the Prince continued to have 
sharp little attacks of illness. " Am ill, feverish, miserable, 
with pains in my limbs," are frequent entries in his Journal. 
Alas ! if his physician, Dr. Baly, had been hving, he might, 
knowing the Prince's constitution, have checked these 
symptoms in time. 

The summer brought many family visitors, among them 
Maximilian and poor Carlotta. The Prince formed a most 
favorable impression of the Archduke, of which I have told 
elsewhere. 

In August, the Queen and Prince went to Ireland, and 
visited Mr. Herbert, of Muckross, and Killarney. That sum- 
mer, too, the Prince of Wales visited Germany, his object 
being to make the acquaintance of Princess Alexandra of 
Denmark, who was then on a visit to some German baths. 

22 



•338 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

This year (1861) was a fatal year for royalties. The 
Crown Princess of Prussia was seriously ill from a cold 
caught at King William's coronation. All the royal family 
of Portugal were ill of typhoid fever ; the King — a kinsman 
and personal friend of Prince Albert — died of it. He had 
before this lost his sweet wife, Stephanie ; and Queen Victoria 
writes in her Journal : " The only comfort in his death is 
that he — dear, pure, excellent Pedro — is spared the pang 
and sacrifice of having to marry again." 

Many anxieties, and perhaps some special private grief, 
weighing upon Prince Albert's heart, during the autumn 
of this fatal year, brought on sleeplessness. Everything he 
did now made him " tired and weak." Notwithstanding, he 
drove in a pouring rain to the Military College at Sandhurst 
to inspect its new buildings. A day or two after, he made 
a hurried journey to Cambridge to look after the affairs of 
his son. He returned to Windsor very seriously ill. The 
next day came news of the "Trent" affair, when Captain 
Wilkes, of the United States Navy, took Messrs. Slidell and 
Mason, envoys to France from the Confederate States, out 
of a British mail-steamer. The excitement in England was 
intense. The Prince rose from his sleepless bed at dawn on 
the morning of November 28, to write a draft of a memo- 
randum on the subject which he thought might be of use. 
These were the words he wrote, in pain and weakness ; the 
last he ever penned : — 

" The Queen returns these important drafts, which upon the 
whole she approves ; but she cannot help feeling that the main 
draft — that for communication to the American Government — 
is somewhat meagre. She should have liked to have seen the 
expression of a hope that the American captain did not act under 
instructions, or, if he did, he misapprehended them. That the 
United States Government must be fully aware that the British 
Government could not allow its flag to be insulted, and the 
security of its mail communications be put in jeopardy ; and 
Her Majesty's Government are unwilling to believe that the 
United States Government intended wantonly to put an insult 
upon this country, and to add to their many distressing compli- 
cations by forcing a question of dispute upon us, and that we 
are therefore glad to believe that upon a full consideration of the 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 339 

circumstances of the undoubted breach of international law 
committed, they would spontaneously offer such redress as 
alone could satisfy this country; viz., the restoration of the 
unfortunate passengers, and a suitable apology." 

As we know, the Government of Mr. Lincoln did not 
hesitate to make this apology, and restore Messrs. Slidell 
and Mason to liberty ; but before this came to pass, the 
Prince was no longer by his wife's side to be her support 
and her adviser. 

After another night of shivering and sleeplessness, the 
Prince sent for his new physician. Dr. Jenner, who sum- 
moned Sir James Clark for consultation. The Prince, ill as 
he was, was allowed to receive detailed particulars of the 
King of Portugal's illness and death, and remarked that he 
hoped his own illness was not fever, as he was sure if it was 
it would be fatal to him. 

Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, was anxious for 
more medical advice ; but Sir James Clark considered this 
unnecessary ; he did not think the disease would turn into 
low fever. 

Alas ! it seems as if after the break-down that had 
been going on for months, nothing else should have been 
expected. 

All the next day the Prince lay listless. " No book," 
says his wife, " suited him," though she and Princess Alice 
tried "Silas Marner " and "The Warden." "The Dodd 
Family" was then tried ; but he disliked it, as a man in his 
condition would naturally do. Then they resolved " to try 
Walter Scott to-morrow." 

Ten days of this miserable weakness succeeded ; the 
Prince trying to fight against his illness, but suffering all 
the time from total inability to take food, and from sleep- 
lessness. At last his illness was pronounced to be low fever, 
or, as we should call it, typhoid. The word " fever " was, 
however, concealed from the Prince. " My heart," says 
the Queen, " seemed ready to burst ; but I cheered myself 
by thinking how many people have fever. . . . Good Alice 
was very courageous, and comforted me." And, indeed. 



340 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Princess Alice all through these days of trial was her 
mother's and her father's guardian angel. 

The physicians seem not to have known the frailty of 
the Prince's constitution, or not to have been made aware 
of the great strain put upon him by the labors and anxieties 
of the past year. 

He was restless, and wanted to be moved from room to 
room. By the ninth day his mind at times began to wan- 
der ; but he listened with pleasure while the Queen read 
" Peveril of the Peak." 

When one thinks of the devoted loyalty of dear Sir 
Walter Scott shown even to such a sovereign as George 
IV., one wishes he could have known of the Queen of 
England, soothing with his imaginations the weary hours 
of wakefulness of such a man. 

When his wife would bend over him he would stroke her 
face, and whisper, in the tongue of his childhood, " Liebes 
Frauchen," — dear little wife. "These caresses," she said, 
"touched me so much, made me so grateful ! " 

Still, Lord Palmerston (confined to his room by gout) 
urged further advice from medical men, and others were 
called in. They expressed themselves satisfied that all had 
been done that could be. 

Music and art still gave him pleasure. There was a 
beautiful Madonna, painted on porcelain, which he had him- 
self given to the Queen, and to which his face turned with 
pleasure every time he was carried past it, saying, " It 
helps me through the day;" and it pleased him to hear 
Princess Alice play, in the adjoining chamber, " Ein' feste 
Burg ist unser Gott," Luther's grand German national 
hymn. 

But "the overwhelming calamity " as Lord Palmerston 
called the Prince's death (he who at one time had been 
unfriendly to the Prince) was near at hand. 

On the fourteenth day of his illness it was thought by the 
doctors that the crisis might be passed. " It was a bright 
morning," says the Queen, "the sun just rising, and shining 
brightly. Never can I forget how beautiful my darling 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 34 1 

looked, lying with his face Ut up by the rising sun, his eyes, 
unusually bright, gazing, as it were, on unseen objects, and 
not taking notice of me." 

The Prince of Wales had now been sent for, and had 
arrived during the night. Alas ! all that day death was 
slowly creeping over its victim ; but his wife hoped and 
feared, and strengthened herself to be calm for his sake, till 
towards evening she broke down. 

Here is the last scene told from her memoranda : — 

" About half-past five I went back to his room and sat down 
by the side of his bed, which had been wheeled into the middle 
of his chamber. 'Gutes Frauchen,' he said, and kissed me ; and 
then gave a sort of piteous moan, or rather sigh, not of pain, but 
as if he felt he were leaving me, and laid his head upon my 
shoulder, and I put my arm under his. Then he seemed to 
doze and to wander. Sometimes he spoke French. Alice 
came in and kissed him, and he took her hand. Bertie, Helena, 
Louise, and Arthur came in one after the other and took his 
hand, and Arthur kissed it. But he was dozing, and did not 
perceive it. Then those of his household came in and kissed 
his hand, dreadfully overcome. Thank God I was able to com- 
mand myself, and to remain perfectly calm and sitting by his 
side." 

Late in the night the Queen retired a few moments 
into her own chamber, whence she was recalled by the 
Prince's breathing growing more difficult. Bending over 
him, she whispered " Es ist kleines Frauchen." He bowed 
his head and kissed her. 

Again she left him for a few moments, duties pressing 
upon her even then. She was recalled by Princess Alice. 
She took his left hand, which was growing cold, and knelt 
down by his side. On the other side of the bed was Prin- 
cess Alice, and at its foot the Prince of Wales and Princess 
Helena. Others of the household and a kinsman, a 
German Prince, stood around. 

The Castle clock struck a quarter to eleven the 14th of 
December, 1861. Calm and peaceful grew the form so 
loved. The features settled into the beauty of a perfectly 



342 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

serene repose. Two or three long but gentle breaths were 
drawn, " and that great soul," says his biographer, " had 
fled to seek a nobler scope for its aspirations, in the world 
within the veil, for which it had often yearned, where there 
is rest for the weary, and where the spirits of just men are 
made perfect." 

Mr. Gladstone, between whom and the Prince there was 
not in all points cordial sympathy, says of the biography 
written by Sir Theodore Martin at the command of Her 
Majesty : — 

" It has a yet higher title to our esteem in its faithful care 
and solid merit as a biography. From the midst of the hottest 
glow of earthly splendor, it has drawn forth to public contem- 
plation a genuine piece of solid, slerhng, and unworldly excel- 
lence, a pure and holy life, from which every man, and most of 
all every Christian, may learn many an ennobling lesson, on 
which he may do well to meditate when he communes with his 
own heart and in his chamber, and is still." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LORD BEACONSFIELD. 

WHEN on that unhappy night in December, 1861, the 
brightness of the Queen's life passed away forever, 
Lord Palmerston was in office as her Prime Minister. And 
though he was in general not a man of sympathies or senti- 
ment, he was the first to realize the irreparableness of the 
loss his sovereign had sustained, and to appreciate her 
meaning when she spoke of having to " begin a new 
reign." 

He had become Prime Minister when, in the midst of 
the Crimean war, the ministry of Lord Aberdeen broke to 
pieces under the terrible strain. The cry of the country 
was then for Palmerston. Where was Palmerston? — the 
one man whose energy, activity, and vim (though he was 
then seventy) could extricate England from the difficulties 
in which by the departing cabinet she had been involved. 

From 1855 to the close of his life, in 1865, Lord Palmer- 
ston continued on the most cordial terms with the mistress 
whom he served. The old quarrel about his wilful and 
independent action, when Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was 
all forgotten ; and though the great difference between the 
jaunty Premier and the Prince, on whom responsibility had 
weighed ever since he was nineteen, had precluded great 
sympathy of character, both the Queen and Prince had 
cordially appreciated Lord Palmerston's ever-present sense 
of the dignity of England, and his cheerful confidence that 
no matter what difficulties beset his countrymen, they would 
come out triumphant in the end. 

The premiership came to Lord Palmerston only when he 
had more than reached middle life ; but at the age of 
twenty-three, in 1807, he had held his first office in the 



344 E^'GLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

cabinet of the Duke of Portland as a Lord of the Admiralty, 
and he had been in Government employ, with little inter- 
mission, for forty-nine years. The Foreign Office was his 
own especial office. He hated any interference with him 
in his management of it, as much as a millionnaire banker 
might object to supervision of his correspondence, or inter- 
meddling in his counting-room. This was the cause of his 
disagreement with the Queen and Lord John Russell in 
185 1, and his dismissal from his beloved office, to which 
he never returned. But he gave Lord John what he called 
his " tit-for-tat " only a few months after, by breaking up 
his cabinet. To the credit of Lord John's generosity, be it 
said that he put aside all personal considerations, and con- 
sented to serve as Colonial Secretary under his old sub- 
ordinate in 1855, and even to accept the Foreign Office 
in 1859. 

The period of Lord Palmerston's premiership, from 1859 
until his death, was marked by domestic and foreign wor- 
ries rather than by great events. Abroad, Enghsh diplo- 
macy had to deal with disputes with the United States 
concerning privateers and the '' Alabama's " depredations ; 
with the Emperor Alexander IL in 1863 about his severe 
repression of the pohtical aspirations of the Poles; about 
the affairs of the Danish Duchies and the Danish succes- 
sion, — a question which, it is said, only two men in Europe 
understood ; with the pretensions of the King of Prussia ; 
with the aspirations of King Victor Emmanuel to be king 
of Italy ; with the war in Lombardy, ended by the Peace 
of Villafranca ; with a little war in New Zealand, and an- 
other in China. At home, the House of Commons quar- 
relled with the House of Lords about its sole right to 
originate or alter bills relating to taxation; the men of 
Manchester were indignant with the Government for inor- 
dinate expenditure upon naval armaments; and the Vol- 
unteers were displaying increased activity in amateur 
soldiering, in view of a possible war with Germany, — an 
invasion from that quarter, and a " Battle of Dorking." 
Mr. Disraeli led the Tory Opposition ; Mr. Gladstone was 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 345 

going through the last stages of his conversion from a Tory 
of the old school to an Advanced Radical ; and Ireland 
gave less trouble to the Government than she had done for 
many years. 

On April 2, 1865, Mr. Cobden, the standard-bearer 
twenty years before of the great Corn Law League, and the 
champion of working-men in the manufacturing districts, 
died, and on October 18 of the same year died Lord Pal- 
merston. Had he lived two days longer, he would have 
been eighty-one. His mental powers were unweakened to 
the last, and he kept up his physical activity to within a few 
months of his death, when gout and failing eyesight dis- 
abled him. When seventy years old he could row on the 
Thames before breakfast, or swim in the river like an Eton 
boy ; and only a short time before his death he was seen to 
come early out of his house, and, looking round to see he M'as 
not observed, climb over a high iron railing to test his 
powers. 

The grief for his loss was national. " He was a true 
Englishman," was the praise on everybody's lips. " The 
incarnation of le pet fide Albioti,'" a French writer had said 
of him a quarter of a century before. His opponents ex- 
pressed as much sorrow for his loss as did his friends. He 
was buried in Westminster Abbey, and most truly mourned 
for ; yet he was essentially a man of his hour, an opportunist 
by nature, and an eminently successful one. He can hardly 
be said to have left "footprints on the sands of time" that 
the advancing ocean has not been able to wash away. Can- 
ning, Peel, Melbourne, Wellington, and Disraeli had stronger 
personalities, and will live longer in men's memories than 
Palmerston. 

He was the last of the confidential advisers with whom 
Queen Victoria began her reign ; and a recent writer in 
the " Nineteenth Century " closes a brief sketch of him by 
saying : — 

"Henceforth the Queen was destined to be thrown with a 
new generation of public servants, men well known to her by 
name and fame, but none of whom had passed in close relation 



346 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

with her through the excitements of her queenship, and the joys 
and sorrows of her married hfe. In spite of differences, the 
Queen had always extended to Lord Palmerston that straight- 
forward support, of the lack of which none of her ministers have 
ever complained ; and when he died, she could not help feeling 
that her youth had passed away with him, and that she was 
left, a lonely woman, face to face with the awful responsibilities 
of her great office, without one human being in the world whom 
she could call an old friend." 

The vacancy occasioned in the cabinet by Lord Palmer- 
ston's death was supplied by Lord John Russell ; but as he 
had been raised to the peerage as an English peer under 
the title of Earl Russellj he could not, like Palmerston, 
who was only an Irish peer, sit in the House of Commons. 
Mr. Gladstone, therefore, became leader for Her Majesty's 
Government in the Lower House, while Mr. Disraeli was 
the leader of "Her Majesty's Opposition." 

In 1866 Lord Russell brought forward a reformed Reform 
Bill. But the House of Commons did not, as a whole, 
want reform, and the " unenfranchised millions " who had 
agitated for the Charter in 1848 were not likely to be much 
appeased by a measure which would extend the franchise to 
only a few hundreds. 

As the bill never passed, no more need be said of it. 
Lord Russell's ministry resigned, and the ministry of Lord 
Derby (father of the future statesman of our own day) 
came into power. 

Mr. McCarthy says : — 

"The year 1866 was a year of great agitation throughout 
Europe and America. In England a great commercial crisis 
had taken place, with its Black Friday of May 11, which made 
a most disastrous mark upon the history of the City of London. 
The Bank Charter had to be suspended. The cattle plague, 
though checked by the stringent measures of the Government, 
was still raging, and the landlords and cattle-owners were still in 
a state of excitement and alarm, and had long been clamoring 
over the insufficiency of the compensation paid by the Govern- 
ment for the cattle they were compelled to slaughter, while other 
classes condemned it as extravagant and unreasonable. The 
Emperor of Austria drew the sword against Prussia. Italy en- 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 347 

tered into the quarrel by declaring war against Austria. The 
time seemed hopeless for pressing a small reform bill on in the 
face of an unwilling Parliament, or for throwing the country 
into the turmoil of a general election. Lord Russell and Mr. 
Gladstone accepted the situation, and resigned." 

In the ministry of Lord Derby that succeeded the brief 
cabinet of Lord Russell, Mr. DisraeH was prominent. He 
was a man whose career had been full of surprises. He 
was an English leader, alien from Englishmen both in race 
and temperament ; the head of the most English of English 
parties, though his ideas and his character were essentially 
un-English ; the champion of the Church, though of Jewish 
race and birth ; an ex-Radical who led the broken wing of 
the extreme Conservatives ; an orator who for ten sessions 
was heard in Parliament with laughter or indifference ; a 
man whose birthday is still kept, with primrose garlands, by 
the great ladies and gentlemen of England ; who for years 
was the butt of " Punch," whose dress, manners, ringlets, 
and physiognomy had all the characteristics of that flash 
vulgarity which is supposed to mark the Jew. 

It was his theory, put forth in all his novels, that Jews are 
the born rulers of the human race ; and in " Sidonia " he 
certainly seems to have made good his proposition. As 
bankers, physicians, musicians, singers, rulers, and men of 
literature, he advanced their claims to eminence ; and un- 
doubtedly he himself was a striking illustration of his theory. 

In the days of Ferdinand and Isabella his ancestors had 
been driven from Spain by Torquemada and the Inquisition. 
The Spanish Jews have always maintained that their ances- 
tors took no part in the tragedy of the Crucifixion ; that the 
curse that day invoked by Jews on their posterity should not 
apply to them, since they had been settled in Spain long 
before the Christian era. 

The family of Lord Beaconsfield took refuge in Venice. 
There they may have walked with Shylock on the Rialto, 
and lent moneys to Bassanio and young men similarly 
extravagant. It is certain that they were buried in the 
Jewish burying-ground beside the sea, where sunken 



348 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Stone slabs record their names, half covered by intruding 
vegetation. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century, Mr. Pelham, 
being Prime Minister of England, endeavored to remove 
some of the civil disabilities of the Jews, who, up to that 
time (with a brief intermission during the rule of Cromwell), 
had been permitted to live in England only on sufferance. 
Encouraged by this new disposition in their favor, some Jews 
(among them the grandfather of Lord Beaconsfield) came 
over to England in 1749. There were Jewish families of 
wealth and consideration already there, and in more than 
one case the wealth of heiresses had caused them to be allied 
with the aristocracy. 

In 1753, the Jews' Naturalization Bill was passed; but it 
met with great mob opposition (as we may see in Miss 
Edgeworth's charming story of " Harrington,") and as soon 
as Mr. Pelham was dead it was repealed. The Jews remained 
foreigners in England up to 1858. 

The immigrant (Lord Beaconsfield's grandfather) assumed 
the name of DTsraeli, — a name never borne by any other 
Jewish family, — "in order," says his grandson, " that the 
race from whence he sprang might be forever recognized." 

The wife of this proudly Jewish gentleman was entirely 
unlike himself. She was of a highly descended Jewish fam- 
ily, and had social aspirations. She felt deep shame and 
pain at being a Jewess,^ and it is beheved that she refused 
to follow her husband to England, but lived and died apart 
from him in Amsterdam. Her grandson says of her that 
she was so mortified by her social position " that she lived 
till eighty without indulging a tender expression. Her 
fierceness of resentment, not being able to wreak itself upon 
her nation's persecutors, preyed upon and rent herself. She 
detested her own race. She hated the name of DTsraeli, 
which her husband had given her, looking upon it as he 
looked upon it (though in a different sense), as a perpetual 
witness of their Jewish connections." 

1 She is said to have been the original of the Princess, Daniel 
Deronda's unnatural mother. 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 349 

This grandfather his descendant describes as " a man of 
ardent character, sanguine, courageous, speculative, and for- 
tunate ; with a temper which no disappointment could dis- 
turb, and a brain, amid reverses, full of resource." In 
short, he was a brilliant man of business and an accom- 
plished man of the world. He made his fortune and' 
enjoyed it ; owned land in three counties in England ; 
built himself a beautiful country seat, where he laid out 
an Italian garden ; played whist with Sir Horace Mann, 
the friend of Horace Walpole ; and was greatly esteemed 
by his contemporaries. 

His son, Isaac Disraeli, was a literary man, and wrote 
books still on the shelves of our libraries. With him, a 
sense of social exclusion seems to have led to his shutting 
himself up with his books. Benjamin Disraeli, his eldest 
son, born in 1805, was twelve years old when the old 
grandfather died, and a year later his father, having had 
some disagreement with the rulers of the chief synagogue 
in London, broke off the relations of his family with their 
co-religionists. Isaac Disraeli never joined any religious 
body afterwards, but his friend and literary associate, Samuel 
Rogers, the banker and poet, marched the boy Benjamin 
off to St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, and on July 31, 181 7, 
Benjamin Disraeli, " said to be," says the '' Parish Register," 
" twelve years old," was baptized a Church of England 
Christian. It is not likely there was much, if any, religious 
feeling in the matter. Samuel Rogers was not eminent as 
a Christian. It is not known whether Isaac Disraeli objected, 
or gave (as is probable) a tacit consent; but the true story 
seems to be that Rogers, thinking it a pity that the lack of 
a mere form, as he considered it, should stand in the way 
of a very clever boy's advancement, took this mode of 
inducting him into all the privileges, civil and political, 
which the law of England then denied to Jews, Papists, 
and Dissenters. 

Young Disraeli never went to any public school, but was 
for a little while in a law office. From the first he intended 
to reap all the temporal good he could out of his •' conver- 



350 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

sion." He tried to secure a seat in Parliament as soon as 
he was of the legal age, and was greatly annoyed at hearing 
that Lord Grey, struck by his unusual name, had asked, 
"What is he?" Thereupon he wrote a pamphlet to 
answer the question. The pamphlet is lost. It is not 
even (more 's the pity) in the British Museum ; but it 
was a prophecy, made in good faith, of what it was his 
intention to become. Somebody, in after years, said of 
it that it was like a scene in an old Miracle Play, in 
which Adam passes before the audience on his way to be 
created. 

Disraeli's first appearance before the public was as author 
of a very clever novel, " Vivian Grey," written before he 
was twenty-two. " The book was," says Justin McCarthy, 
" suffused with extravagant affectation and mere animal 
spirits ; but it was full of the evidence of a fresh and bril- 
liant ability." It was followed by " Contarini Fleming," 
and then by the " Wondrous Tale of Alroy." All these 
novels were written at white heat, and are full of personal 
feeling. They were not autobiographical in matter, but 
entirely so in their reflections. All his writings, up to the 
day of his death, were Oriental rather than English, and 
Oriental in everything was the whole turn of his mind. 
There are few things more amusing than a celebrated re- 
view in "Blackwood" of " Lothair ; " and there is no 
better parody than Bret Harte's " Lothaw " in " Condensed 
Novels." Nevertheless, all Disraeli's novels are extremely 
interesting, full of sparkling thoughts, and things that sug- 
gest thought to the reader. He wrote novels to the end of 
his life ; " Endymion," his last, being very autobiographical, 
and full of sketches of the statesmen of his time. 

He entered Parliament for Maidstone, in Kent, in 1837, 
being then thirty-two years of age. He began his career 
as an advanced Radical, a supporter of O'Connell, a dis- 
ciple of Joseph Hume. Subsequently he quarrelled with 
O'Connell ; but that was years later, when he was a Tory 
leader, and O'Connell called him, in the polite language 
of political controversy in those days, " a miscreant," " a 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 35 I 

wretch," "a liar whose whole life is a living lie," and, 
finally, " the blasphemous descendant of the impenitent 
thief." Disraeli was not slow to return these compliments, 
particularly offensive in the mouth of a man who, it was 
known, would fight no duel. 

Disraeli's first speech provoked the laughter and the 
ridicule of the House of Commons. The only man who 
saw anything in it was the future sufferer from his impas- 
sioned, bitter eloquence, — Sir Robert Peel. At last, baffled 
by persistent laughter and other interruptions of a noisy 
House, Disraeh lost his temper, which for a long time he 
had kept wonderfully under control, and, pausing in the 
middle of a sentence, he looked full in the faces of his 
opponents, and then, raising his hands and opening his 
mouth as wide as its dimensions would permit, he said 
very loudly, and in an almost terrific tone : " I have begun 
several times many things, and I have often succeeded at 
last; aye, sir, and though- I sit down now, the time will 
come when you will hear me ! " 

For ten years he continued to sit in Parliament, taking 
frequent part in debates, and appreciated as a good free 
lance, though no one but himself dreamed of him as a 
political leader. 

He is described by one who used to see him in those 
days as — 

"Attired in a bottle-green coat, a white waistcoat of the Dick 
Swiveller pattern, the front of which exhibited a network of 
glittering chains, large fancy pattern pantaloons, and a black 
tie, over which appeared no shirt collar. His countenance 
was lividly pale, set off by a pair of intensely black eyes, and a 
broad but not very high forehead, overhung by clustering ring- 
lets of coal-black hair, which, combed away from the ri<;ht 
temple, fell in bunches of well-oiled small ringlets on his left 
cheek. His manner was intensely theatrical, his gestures were 
wild and extravagant." 

Mr. Motley, in his correspondence, gives this account of his 
first appearance in London society, as the author of " Vivian 
Grey," given to him at a dinner-party by Mrs. Norton : 



352 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" She assured me she did not exaggerate. He wore a black 
velvet coat lined with satin ; purple trousers with a gold band 
running down the outside seam ; a scarlet waistcoat ; long lace 
ruffles falling down to the tips of his fingers ; white gloves, with 
several brilliant rings outside of them ; and long black ringlets 
rippling down upon his shoulders." 

He had begun life a young and ardent spirit, prepared 
to run amuck against all old existing institutions. In 
1846, nine years after he entered Parliament, he was a 
strong Conservative, the intimate friend and associate of 
Lord George Bentinck, a nobleman who up to that time 
had been known only for his attachment to horse-racing 
and his upright character. 

At the opening of the session of 1846, Sir Robert Peel, 
then Prime Minister, the leader of the Tory, or country, 
party, electrified all parties by proclaiming himself a con- 
vert to the principles of the Anti-Corn Law League and 
Mr. Cobden. English wheat was no longer to be pro- 
tected ; foreign wheat-growers were to be invited to assist 
in feeding the English population. With us it is the manu- 
facturers who are supposed to want a tarifif, and the farmers 
who desire to dispense with it. In. England it was the 
reverse. 

Sir Robert Peel's declaration of a change of policy so 
paralyzed his party that it is possible all would have ac- 
quiesced in his new views, and have followed him, had not 
Disraeli sprung to his feet and proclaimed himself the 
leader of all those who desired to bolt from Sir Robert's 
old party. With the most stinging sarcasm he pursued the 
great leader. Every word of his speech told. From that 
moment he was a power in the state, and he and Lord 
George Bentinck, a man of far less ability than himself, 
led the ranks of the old-fashioned High Tories. 

Before this time Disraeli and Lord George had been 
prominent in a movement called Young England. The 
Young England party has long died out \ but though during 
its existence it was greatly ridiculed, it left behind it a large 
residuum of good. Its idea was that the salvation of 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 353 

England lay in its young men of rank and cultivation, 
helped by its young women ; that above all things, a fusion 
of classes was needed : the high and the low must know 
each other, and meet on common ground, in the cricket- 
field, in the dance, in lecture-rooms, at concerts, and in 
the church above everything. The apostles of this doc- 
trine were to be the highest. Young noblemen and clergy- 
men were to set the example, just as officers lead soldiers. 
They were to acquire influence, practise loving-kindness, 
introduce culture to the masses, take the lead in sanitary 
and social reforms. A vast deal has been done in England 
in these respects which was set going by Young England. 
The political principles of the party were in the highest 
degree opposed to radicalism ; but, socially, the young noble- 
man was taught to consider himself the man and the brother 
of his ploughboy or the artisan. 

Mr. Disraeli had always a considerable toleration for 
misguided Chartists, revolutionaries, and ' even Fenians, 
speaking of their leaders in Parliament with more pity than 
reprobation. In " Coningsby," "Sybil," and " Lothair " 
we may trace his feelings. 

He was above all things an opportunist. He thought 
that as times grow, so men's views should grow^with them. 
Gambetta, the great opportunist, was his ardent admirer. 

In a series of intensely bitter articles against him which 
came out in the " Fortnightly Review" two years before his 
death, his career is divided into three epochs, — from 1826 
to 1837, the era of preparation; from 1837 to 1852, the 
era of struggle, when in Parliament he tried to gain, first 
toleration, then recognition, and then eminence ; and from 
1852 to 1878, when he stood victorious and triumphant, 
acknowledged at last to be the greatest man in England 
of his day. 

The unfriendly critic says of him in the middle stage 
of his career (that is, from 1837 to 1852) that "he began 
by wearing the livery of Peel ; then, with ribbons in his hat 
and a whistle in his mouth, masqueraded as a rural swain, 
dancing with his Young England companions round a May- 

23 



354 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

pole ; and finally, in the breeches and topboots of a stage 
squire, he smacked his hunting-whip against his thigh, and 
denounced the villany of the traitor Peel, who had deceived 
him and other simple-minded country gentlemen into 
believing that he was a protectionist and a friend of the 
land and the corn laws, while he was nothing but a 
manufacturer and a free-trader. Lord Beaconsfield's rapid 
changes of costume and character resemble those of the 
elder and younger Mathews in some of their most start- 
ling transformations." 

It is quite true that when Disraeli stood for Maidstone, 
in 1837, he had modified his early radicalism, and became 
for a short time an enthusiastic admirer of Peel. In 1832 
he had sought election at High Wycombe as an advanced 
Radical ; he came into Parliannent five years later as a Con- 
servative. While a follower of Sir Robert Peel, this is how 
he addressed his leader in a pamphlet called " Letters of 
Runnymede " : " In the halls and bowers of Drayton, those 
gardens and that library, you have realized the romance of 
Verulam, and enjoy the lettered ease that Temple loved." 
He speaks of Sir Robert's " splendid talents and his spot- 
less character," and calls him the Knight of Rhodes in 
Schiller's ballad, — "■ the only hope of a suffering isle." 

Benjamin Disraeli came into Parliament, as I have said, 
for Maidstone, a Kentish borough, in 1837. Maidstone 
sent two representatives to Parliament. The colleague of 
Mr. Disraeli was Mr. Wyndham Lewis. This gentleman 
had married the daughter of Captain Viney, of the English 
navy, who was in straitened circumstances at her father's 
death, but who, by the death of an uncle, had become an 
heiress by the time Mr. Lewis -married her. This lady was 
sixteen years older than Disraeli. A year after Mr. Lewis 
entered Parliament he died of lung-trouble, leaving his wife 
widowed after a union of twenty-three years. Mrs. Lewis 
went into strict retirement for a year ; at the end of that 
time she married Mr. Disraeli. It was a perfectly happy 
union, though it proved childless. "She was," says her 
husband, " the most severe of critics, but a perfect wife." 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 355 

The love and confidence each had for the other grew 
greater and greater as the years rolled on. 

" Few were admitted," says a friend, " to the privilege 
of intimacy with them, and they only had the faintest idea 
of the perfect affection and confidence existing between 
them, — of the chivalrous devotion of the author-statesman 
to his somewhat elderly wife, of the wife's utter and absorbing 
affection for her distinguished husband." 

Some ten years after his marriage, when Disraeli was to 
make a great speech in the House of Commons, his wife 
drove down with him to Westminster. " On getting into 
the carriage, one of her fingers was crushed between the 
door and its frame. The pain must have been terrible ; but 
she said not a word, and maintained her composure till her 
husband had left her to go in by the Members' entrance, 
when, as he disappeared through the doorway, she fainted 
away." 

I may as well tell a few anecdotes concerning this lady 
here, and then proceed with her husband's history. Lord 
Beaconsfield's enemies accused him of boyish freaks in Ht- 
erature, oratory, and statesmanship. He must have had a 
great deal of the boy about him, to which his wife's nature, 
even in old age, seems to have responded ; there was an 
unusual fund of gayety in both their natures. " The hus- 
band never indulged in unavailing regrets. He never 
suffered blunders or misfortunes or miscarriages to touch 
him over-keenly. When in Edinburgh, in 1867, he had a 
great enthusiastic reception which delighted him, 'We 
did not go to bed till very late,' he said to a friend the next 
morning. ' Mrs. Disraeli and I were so delighted that we 
danced a jig over it in our bedchamber.' " Mrs. Disraeli 
was then seventy-seven, and her husband sixty-two. 

A year later (1868), she was created Countess of Beacons- 
field in her own right by the Queen, — an honor which 
took them both by surprise. The husband, it was well 
kno^^^l, did not wish to be raised to the peerage, as he 
would thereby become ineligible to sit in the Lower 
House. . 



356 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Lady Beaconsfield lived till 1872, and was eighty- two 
years old. Her husband, who survived her nine years, never 
recovered her loss. 

The year of her death, when she knew that the disease of 
which she must die in a few months was making progress, 
she endeavored to hide her situation from her husband ; 
whilst he on his part endeavored so to act that she should 
not suspect his knowledge of the same thing. 

" He made a great non-political speech at the opening of a 
popular exhibition in Manchester, in 1871. Lady Beaconsfield 
was present, and towards her her husband frequently turned his 
head. When it was over she was driven to the house of a friend. 
There, when she heard the grating of his wheels upon the gravel, 
she hurried to the door to meet him, though every movement 
was pain, and, flinging herself into his arms, embraced him 
rapturously, crying, ' Oh, Dizzy, Dizzy, this is the greatest night 
of all ! this pays for everything ! ' " 

We turn back now to 1846, when Disraeli sprang at a 
bound into the position of a statesman and the leader of a 
party, by his speech against Sir Robert Peel. His invec- 
tives against the man he had once worshipped were fright- 
fully bitter ; but then he treated Lord Palmerston and Lord 
John Russell in the same way. 

Palmerston and Lord John probably cared little for his 
attacks ; but Sir Robert felt them keenly, though he sat all 
through them with patient dignity. 

As we have seen, Peel carried his repeal of the Corn 
Laws, and then was forced to resign by defeat on an Irish 
coercion bill, through a coalition of the Whigs with those 
who, under Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, had 
bolted from the Tory party. The Whigs, under Lord John 
Russell, succeeded Sir Robert Peel. 

In 1852, the party of Mr. Disraeli was in power, and he 
was a member of the cabinet. Lord George Bentinck had 
died a sudden death four years before, and Lord Derby 
was Prime Minister. Mr. Disraeli was Chancellor of the 
Exchequer (what in the United States is Secretary of the 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 357 

Treasury), and he was also his party's leader in the House 
of Commons. He asked for this office in preference to 
being made one of the secretaries of state, as was at first 
proposed ; it was surmised, because the office of secretary 
would have brought him into personal relations with the 
Queen, — an association he had reason to think would not 
be agreeable to her. Twenty years later, the Queen was 
accused of an esteem for him which tended to favoritism ; 
but in 1852 Her Majesty was not known to her people as 
she is now; and, in 1841, the Duke of Wellington, who 
loved her like an uncle, could say, " There will never be a 
Conservative ministry, — I have no small talk, and Peel has 
no manners." 

It fell to Mr. Disraeli, in his official position, to make two 
motions in the House of Commons in one day, — one an- 
nouncing that Her Majesty's Government recognized Napo- 
leon HI. as Emperor of the French ; the other asking for a 
vote of money to defray the expenses of the public funeral 
of the Duke of Wellington. 

It became his duty, too, as representative of the Govern- 
ment, to pronounce the eulogy of the greatest of modern 
Enghshmen in Parliament. The speech was a brilliant one ; 
but it is not denied, even by his friends, that some one dis- 
covered presently that it was a plagiarism from an oration 
by M. Thiers over one of Napoleon's marshals ! 

As a leader of the House of Commons, Disraeli was an 
indefatigable and painstaking worker ; but he did not 
distinguish himself as a financier. His party was not long 
in office, and six years succeeded, during which Lord 
Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone first, and afterwards Lord 
Palmerston and a Whig cabinet were in power. During 
these six years occurred the Crimean war, the Indian 
Mutiny, and the establishment of a friendly alliance 
between France and England. 

When the bombs of Orsini threw Lord Palmerston and 
his cabinet out of power, Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli 
resumed office. Under them the East India Company as 
a ruling body was broken up, and the Government of India 
transferred to the English Crown. 



358 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

A revision of the Reform Bill was called for in 1867. 
Reform bills had been brought forward in 1851, 1854, 
i860, 1861, and 1867. "All parties," as Disraeli said, 
" seemed to have tried to reform the Reform Bill, but had 
failed." All appear to have agreed on the necessity of a 
more liberal franchise. Lord Derby's Government pre- 
pared such a bill ; but before it could be passed they had 
to give up office, and the Whigs, coming in, picked up the 
bill and made it a Government measure. 

It was on this occasion or a similar one that Mr. 
Disraeli said " that the Whigs had caught the Tories bath- 
ing, and had tried to steal their clothes." 

There were heated political discussions in those days, 
and brief tenure of office for either party. Throughout all 
this time our Civil War was raging, and England hesitated 
which side to take, as now Conservatives and now Liberals 
came into power. Mr. Gladstone sympathized with the 
Southern people ; Mr. Disraeh believed that the great future 
of America lay in the continued Union of North and South. 
Early in 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister, Lord 
Derby having retired from office after passing a Reform 
Bill. But Disraeli did not retain his premiership very 
long. His rival and political opponent, Mr. Gladstone, 
carried a resolution in regard to the Disestablishment of the 
Anglican Church in Ireland. Disraeli appealed to the 
country, and the result was a complete defeat of his 
party in a General Election. 

However much or little of a Christian Disraeli may have 
been, his policy was always in sympathy with the High 
Church party ; but many members of that party held, with 
Keble, that to endow the Established Church in Ireland 
with the spoils of the Roman Catholic Church was an injus- 
tice. The disestabhshment of the Church in Ireland stands 
on a very different footmg from disestablishment in Wales 
or England. 

When Disraeh found himself defeated in 1868 in the Gen- 
eral Election, he bowed to the decision of his country, and 
placed the reins of government in Mr. Gladstone's hands. 
That statesman held office for six years, and in 1874 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 359 

Disraeli and his party came back to power. The present 
Lord SaUsbury was one of the cabinet. 

And now Lord Beaconsfield (for in 1876 Disraeli had 
accepted the same title as his wife) was at the height of his 
political prosperity. He had the favor and personal affec- 
tion of the Queen, and the full support of Parliament. 
Since the fall of Sir Robert Peel's ministry, in 1846, no 
administration had enjoyed such advantages. He himself, 
having no longer the leadership of the House of Commons 
to attend to, devoted himself largely to foreign affairs. He 
wanted to deal with kings and emperors, and to maintain 
the balance of power. 

In 1875 the risings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war 
between Turkey and Servia, and the Bulgarian massacres, 
had reopened the Eastern Question ; and Lord Beacons- 
field was dehghted, Oriental as he was in temperament, 
to have to do with the East. In nearly all his novels his 
hero goes to the East to work reforms and to complete his 
glory. " Let the Queen of England," cries his favorite 
hero, in one of his early novels, " collect a great fleet, let 
her stow away all her treasures, — bullion, gold plate, and 
precious arms, — be accompanied by her court and her 
chief people, and transfer the seat of her Empire from 
London to Delhi ; there she will find an immense em- 
pire ready made, a first-rate army, and a large revenue. 
We acknowledge the Empress of India as our suzerain, and 
secure for her the Levantine coast. If she Hkes, she shall 
have Alexandria, as she now has Malta. You see it would 
be the greatest empire that ever existed ; and the only dif- 
ficult part, the conquest of India, which baffled Alexander, 
has been done." 

This speech in Lord Beaconsfield's novel of " Tancred," 
written almost in the days of his youth, he set himself, 
when he was Prime Minister of England, in some part to 
accomplish. True, Queen Victoria did not carry out the 
Indian Emir's idea that her capital had better be trans- 
ferred to Delhi, but all the rest of it has become nearly 
true. The Queen is Empress of India; England owns 



36o ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Cyprus, and has exercised a protectorate over the Levan- 
tine provinces of Turkey ; her position in Egypt may be 
said to give her authority in Alexandria ; and Indian troops 
have been landed at Suakim to fight the Arabs for imperial 
ends. 

Oriental himself, the Orient was the field of aspirations 
for Lord Beaconsfield. He began by buying nearly one- 
half of all the shares in the Suez Canal from the impe- 
cunious Khedive, to whom he paid nearly ;^4,ooo,ooo. 
When the canal was contemplated, England, to speak both 
literally and metaphorically, had taken no stock in the 
enterprise ; she would not patronize its opening. Lord 
Palmerston was as incredulous of its success as Dr. Lardner 
had been about crossing the ocean by steam. English 
engineers were supposed to have demonstrated that the 
water-level of the Red Sea was higher than that of the 
Mediterranean. But the canal was a success ; it was 
the high-road to India ,; and all England applauded Lord 
Beaconsfield's purchase in 1875, ^"^'^^^ knowing that in 1881 
it was to lead their country into Egyptian difficulties. 

The Queen assumed her new title of Empress of India 
in 1877 ; and this all England did not applaud. It seemed 
to Englishmen that the title of Queen of England was the 
highest upon earth ; that of Empress was vulgar frippery. 
Besides, the title had been debased under Napoleon III., 
and poor Maximilian had died Emperor of Mexico ; there 
had been an Emperor of Hayti, with his noble court of 
Dukes of Lemonade and Marmalade, and an Emperor of 
Morocco. But Disraeli's ideas were all imperial. Imperial, 
he said, meant ruling over many states, and Her Majesty 
held imperial sway over the British Empire. The title, too, 
would settle certain vexed questions of court etiquette, and 
on that account would be agreeable to Her Majesty. It 
has proved, indeed, valuable in the administration of the 
affairs of India, — the native princes and the native peoples 
understanding the personal government of an Empress far 
better than that of cabinets or a company. The Queen 
did not give up her proudest of all titles, that of Queen of 




LORD BEACONSFIELD. 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 36 1 

England, but she added to it Empress of India, and now 
signs herself Victoria R. and I. About the same time the 
Prince of Wales made his Indian tour, and it was thought 
had roused a strong feeling of loyalty among the Indian 
populations. In one district in India the people set up 
the new Empress as a goddess, and Government had 
sternly to interfere to put such worship down. 

But the great event which connected Lord Beaconsfield 
with the Orient was the reopening of the Eastern Question. 
Elsewhere^ I have told of the Turkish war of 1877, of the 
chivalrous General Skobeleif, and his disappointment at 
the course of European diplomacy. We must see what 
that diplomacy was. Many persons have accounted it not 
a creditable passage in English history. 

The Treaty of Paris, made after the Crimean war, pro- 
vided that reforms should be introduced into Turkey, and 
that civil rights should be granted to Christians. The Porte 
has always been celebrated for its " masterly inactivity ; " 
for smiling promises and scant performances. Abdul Aziz, 
the Sultan in 1876, if not actually crazy, was certainly not 
of sound mind. He spent untold sums on gardens and on 
architecture ; and immense sums on his European tour in 
1867. He was the first Turkish sovereign who discovered 
the convenience of raising foreign loans. The money that 
he got by this means was spent in all sorts of extravagant 
foolishness, and then his unfortunate subjects were oppressed 
by heavier taxes. This caused disturbances in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. Servia (an autonomous principality, owing 
tribute and fealty to Turkey) sympathized with oppressed 
fellow-Christians, and made war on Turkey, She was joined 
by a crowd of Russian officers ; but the Turks, who were 
splendid fighters, got the advantage. In 1876 Bulgaria be- 
gan to be restless. The Turkish Government sent Circassians 
and Bashi-Bazouks, a semi-organized banditti, to keep down 
insurrection. These fell upon the wretched villages of un- 
armed Christians. Nor was massacre confined to villages. 
In Salonika (Thessalonica) the French and German consuls 
1 Russia and Turkey in the Nineteenth Century. 



362 ENGLAND IJV THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

were murdered, and the streets ran with Christian blood. 
" These massacres," says Mr. McCarthy, " hardly found their 
parallel in the worst days of the Byzantine Empire or under 
the odious rule of the later sovereigns of Delhi." 

England was roused to frenzy, and great as Lord Beacons- 
field's popularity was, he impaired it by making light of the 
whole matter. Indeed, his ideas seem to have been very 
vague as to the Turkish provinces. He did not apparently 
know exactly what were Bashi- Bazouks. 

Soon, however, the truth was known, and it was worse 
than the iirst reports, when they came to be authenticated. 
It is true that the atrocities were confined to what is now 
called Eastern Roumelia, and did not extend north of the 
Balkans ; but within that province there had been wholesale 
torture, massacre, outrages on women, and sale of children 
into slavery. 

An agent, Mr. Baring, was sent from England to learn the 
truth. He wrote home (and subsequent investigations did 
but confirm his first impressions), "Till I have visited the 
villages I can hardly speak ; but my present opinion, which I 
trust hereafter to be able to modify, is, that about twelve 
thousand Bulgarians have perished. Sixty villages have been 
wholly or partially burned, by far the greater portion of them 
by Bashi- Bazouks." Subsequently Mr. Baring and Mr. Mac- 
gahan, correspondent of the " Daily News," saw masses of the 
dead bodies of women and children piled together where no 
fighting had taken place ; they had been simply butchered. 

The wrath of the English people burst into a flame. Mr. 
Gladstone headed the popular feeling. In this he again 
pitted himself against his rival. The English Government 
made remonstrances with the Turkish Government, and was 
satisfied when assured that the Bashi-Bazouks should be 
restrained, while at that very moment they were receiving 
rewards. 

But after a little while — a brief space given to righteous 
indignation — Mr. Disraeli trumped his rival's trick by rous- 
ing a feeling it is always easy to rouse in England, — antag- 
onism to Russia. 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 363 

Russia, indignant that nothing effectual had been done by 
the united efforts of the Great Powers of Europe, declared 
that, whether the Treaty of Paris allowed it or not, she was 
goine to act by herself, — punish the Turks, and defend the 
Christians. Then public opinion changed : " Mr. Gladstone 
was honestly regarded by millions of Englishmen as the 
friend and instrument of Russia ; Disraeli as the champion 
of England, and the enemy of England's enemy." 

On August II, 1876, Mr. DisraeU made his last speech 
(a very powerful one) in the House of Commons. " The 
next morning all England knew, what no creature had sus- 
pected the night before, that Mr. Disraeli had relinquished 
his career as the great Commoner, and had consented to 
pass into the House of Lords as Lord Beaconsfield." 

Lord Beaconsfield was for maintaining Turkey, at all 
risks, as a barrier against Russia; Mr. Gladstone was for 
renouncing all responsibility for Turkey, and taking the 
consequences. 

Meantime, while diplomacy went on, and feelings in Eng- 
land were at boiling heat, the Turkish war began. The Rus- 
sians crossed the Danube June 27, 1877, and found the Turks 
a much harder enemy to conquer than they had expected. 
They were three times repulsed at Plevna ; took it at last, 
not by fighting, but by famine ; crossed the Balkans in mid- 
winter, at the cost of dreadful suffering ; took Adrianople, 
and encamped upon the shores of the Sea of Marmora. 

All this time there was a strong feeling among Lord 
Beaconfield's supporters that there would be — and there 
must be — a war between England and Russia. Then 
Lord Beaconsfield's followers began to be called Jingoes, 
and his policy Jingoism. Mr. McCarthy shall tell us how 
they got that singular name. 

" There was a very large and a very noisy war party already in 
existence. It was particularly strong in London. It embraced 
some Liberals as well as some Tories. It was popular in the 
music-halls and in the public places of London. The class 
whom Prince Bismarck once called 'gentlemen of the pave- 
ment' were in its favor. The men of action got a nickname. 



364 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

They were dubbed the Jingo Party. The term, applied in ridi- 
cule and reproach, was adopted by chivalrous Jingoes as a name 
of pride. Some Tyrtaeus of the taproom, some Korner of the 
music-halls, had composed a ballad which was sung at one 
of these caves of harmony every night amid tumukuous 
applause. The refrain of this war-song contained the spirit- 
stirring words: — 

*' ' We don't want to fight ; but, by Jingo ! if we do, 

We 've got the ships, we 've got the men, we 've got the money too.' 

Some one whose pulses this lyrical outburst had failed to stir, 
called the party of war-enthusiasts 'Jingoes.' The name was 
caught up at once. The famous ejaculation of Miss Carolinia 
Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs in 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' had 
proved prophetical. She swore ' By the living Jingo ! ' and 
now, indeed, the Jingo was alive! " 

But before anything very decided was done in England 
(for the inembers of Lord Beaconsfield's cabinet were not 
all Jingoes), news came that General Skobeleff was within 
half a day's march of Constantinople. Russia forced 
Turkey to sign an armistice ; and then the Treaty of San 
Stefano, which stipulated for almost complete independence 
for the Christian provinces of Turkey, and made Bulgaria, 
north and south of the Balkans, a great new state, with a 
port on the ^gean Sea, was signed by the Sultan and the 
Emperor. 

England would not consent to this treaty. She said that 
by the Treaty of Paris the affairs of Turkey and Turkish 
dependencies were to be interfered with by no one Power, 
that if any changes must be made, all the Five Great 
Powers must .agree. After much diplomatic discussion, and 
great disappointment on the part of the victorious Russian 
troops, it was resolved to submit the Treaty of San Stefano 
to a Congress to be held»at Berlin. To the amazement 
of everybody, Lord Beaconsfield, though Prime Minister of 
England, decided to go himself as the English representa- 
tive. He and Lord Salisbury went together. 

Prince Bismarck, in whose place the Congress was held, 
received the English Prime Minister most cordially. His 
journey to Berlin was almost a triumphal progress. 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 



365 



"The part Lord Beaconsfield had undertaken to play suited 
his love for the picturesque and the theatrical. The temptation 
was irresistible to a nature so fond of show and state and 
pomp. It seemed a proper culmination of his career that he 
should take his seat in a great European council chamber, 
and there help to dictate terms of peace to Europe and its 
kings." 

Strange to say, however, the Congress of Berlin was 
hardly a council. Its proceedings had been cut and dried 
beforehand. Lord Beaconsfield had entered into two secret 
agreements, — one with Turkey, one with Russia, By that 
between England and Turkey, the English Government 
undertook to guarantee to Turkey all her Asiatic posses- 
sions ; and Turkey was to make Cyprus a present to Eng- 
land. The secret arrangement with Russia bound England 
to consent to giving back Bessarabia to Russia, — a province 
which had been rent from her after the Crimean war, — 
and the important port of Batoum, on the Black Sea. This 
agreement had conceded everything in advance which the 
people of England believed their representatives were 
struggling for in the Congress. Russia only submitted the 
Treaty of San Stefano to the Congress because England 
guaranteed her beforehand the things she most desired. 
Those who were most wronged and disappointed were the 
Christians of Roumelia, who had hoped to be joined to 
Bulgaria ; Roumania, which had to give back Bessarabia to 
Russia ; and the Greeks, who had counted on obtaining a 
better frontier out of Turkish spoils. 

By these pre-arrangements the Congress of Berlin deter- 
mined five points, without much discussion. Russia got 
Batoum and Bessarabia, while Roumania, greatly outraged by 
the loss of her province, was forced to content herself with 
a marshy tract at the mouth of the Danube as compensa- 
tion for that sacrifice and for the blood and money she had 
expended in the war. Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro 
were relieved from all tribute to the Sultan ; Montenegro 
got her coveted port of Cattaro, on the Adriatic ; Bulgaria 
was only Bulgaria north of the Balkans ; but Roumelia was 



366 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

to have a Christian governor. The Prince of Bulgaria was 
to be elected by the people, with the approval of the Sultan 
and all five of the Great Powers. Moreover, the Bulgarian 
Prince was not to be a member of any reigning royal family. 
The Sultan promised civil rights to all his Christian subjects, 
and to be a better ruler in Crete. Bosnia and Herzegovina 
were placed under the protectorate of Austria. 

There is no doubt that by the substitution of this treaty 
for the Treaty of San Stefano, Russia lost much that she had 
fought for, and England gained much for which she had 
paid no price ; the Christian populations in Turkey, too, for 
whom Russia undertook the war, lost much by the exchange. 

In glory and triumph Lord Beaconsfield returned to 
England. He was now an old man, but full of vigor. 

" He had passed through years of struggle with almost insur- 
mountable difficulties; years of steady faith in himself, undis- 
turbed by almost universal ridicule; years of rise and fall, of 
action and inaction, success and disaster, which brought him to 
the climax of his greatness. He and Bismarck were the two 
greatest men in all the world. He had attained a position of 
popularity which Lord Palmerston had never attained. He was 
the demi-god of the populace. The proudest moment of his 
life was probably when, after a semi-theatrical entry into Lon- 
don, he stood in a window of the Foreign Office, addressing the 
crowd that cheered him rapturously, telling them that he had 
brought back Peace with Honor." ^ 

And he did bring back peace. The war feeling was 
soothed, for England had triumphed. But after that time 
came a reaction, and his popularity waned. In the moment 
of his triumph his rival, Mr. Gladstone, had " been nowhere." 
He and his wife had even been hustled by a mob of Lon- 
don roughs boisterously returning from a Jingo carnival. 

But the "little wars" that the Beaconsfield administra- 
tion next engaged in were not popular in England. The 
winter of 1878-79 was a hard one for the poor. Trade 
was dull, the weather cold, and there was great distress in 
England. The House of Commons missed its great leader, 

1 History of our Own Times (Justin McCarthy). 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 367 

and the odious policy of obstructiveness adopted by the 
Irish party wearied the patience of the House. All these 
things broke up Lord Beaconsfield's popularity, never so 
ereat in the provinces as it was in London. Parliament was 
dissolved in the spring of 1880, and the new Parliament 
chosen gave a majority of one hundred and twenty votes for 
the Liberals and against Lord Beaconsfield's Government. 
Lord Beaconsfield of course had to resign, and Mr. Glad- 
stone came into power. 

The opinion of many intelligent foreigners concerning 
Lord Beaconsfield was thus uttered by a German Liberal 
to a travelling Englishman : — 

" The sinister forces with which he had to contend may have 
proved too strong for him ; foreign foes and domestic faction 
may have prevented him from doing all he designed : but in a 
great world crisis he bore himself steadfastly, patiently, strenu- 
ously, heroically ; and he imparted his own spirit to England. 
And more than that, mein Herr, — much more, if your people 
had but known it, — your patriot minister in his struggle with 
the barbarian had all free Europe at his back." 

In writing this chapter, I have had before me two sets of 
sketches of Lord Beaconsfield and his career. The writers 
on one side cannot find words bitter enough with which to 
mock him ; those on the other side praise him as little 
lower than a king of men. He went into retirement at his 
country seat at Hughenden ; but it was not for long. In 
less than two years after he quitted public life he died, 
April 19, 1 88 1. 

On the night of his death it was said that after a violent 
spasm and breathlessness, he lay back, murmuring in a low 
voice, " I am overwhelmed." Yet a httle later he raised 
himself from his pillows, threw back his arms, expanded his 
chest, as he was wont to do when making a speech, and his 
lips were seen to move. The action was characteristic. 
Even by Death he would not acknowledge himself van- 
quished, without reply. His last words were : " Is there 
any bad news? " 



368 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Not long after success began to attend him some words 
from " In Memoriam " were applied to him. The last lines 
of the quotation were laughed at as grandiloquently inap- 
propriate. Before he died, they came true. 

" Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance. 
And grapples with his evil star ; 

" Who makes by force his merit known, 
And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
To mould a mighty state's decrees, 
• And shape the whisper of the throne ; 

" And moving up from high to higher. 

Becomes, on Fortune's crowning slope. 
The pillar of a people's hope, 
The centre of a world's desire." 

Lord Beaconsfield was buried in his parish church at 
Hughenden. He assuredly had a claim to be interred in 
Westminster Abbey; but a grave there was refused him, 
probably in view of his uncertain Christianity. 

His residence was Hughenden Manor, a fine old place in 
Buckinghamshire, which had once belonged to Burke, and 
was purchased by Lady Beaconsfield. The Prince of Wales, 
the Duke of Connaught, and Prince Leopold attended his 
funeral, and many working-men and all the neighboring 
poor. Two days later the Queen and Princess Beatrice 
visited his grave, and laid on it a wreath of white camelias. 

As soon as he was dead the Press and Parliament rang 
with his praises. They spoke of him as a man who, if he 
had faults, was always a conservator of England's greatness. 
A statue of him in his robes as an earl has been erected 
opposite to Westminster Abbey. 

His title died with him ; but the heir to his estates 
was his brother, Ralph Disraeli, to whose son, Coningsby 
Disraeli, they were destined to descend. 

Within a year of his death Lord Beaconsfield wrote and 
published " Endymion." This novel had a great success. 



LORD BEACONSFIELD. 369 

It is filled with portraits, under feigned names, of the states- 
men and authors with whom the writer had been associated, 
and may be read as a brilliant sketch of the political his- 
tory of England for forty years. 

Of late years a very interesting correspondence between 
Lord Beaconsfield and his sister has been published. In it 
the world may see more closely than it could see in his life 
the mind and heart of a man who, though his writings were 
all more or less autobiographical, was, as to his private life, 
very reserved. 

" A French academician, " says Lord Houghton, " re- 
marked when Lord Beaconsfield's administration failed, 
and Mr. Gladstone came into power, that England had 
exchanged one artist for another." 

Among the numerous sketches in " Endymion " is one 
of poor Hudson, the Railway King, who, when his ruin 
came, said of the men he had enriched by opening up the 
country by roads which failed to pay at first, who drove 
him into bankruptcy, " They took me from behind the 
counter and gave me to administer greater affairs under 
greater difficulties than even Mr. Pitt undertook in the 
great war. I had some p/^70,000,000 to manage, and 
I may have made some mistakes in doing it. Those 
men who have lost pounds by me are hounding me to 
death ; but where are those who have made thousands 
by me?" 

" Endymion " is the novel of pecuniary good fortune. 
It cheers those weary of the strain of poverty to see its 
success and, in imagination, share in its profusion. " It 
has been pleasantly said," remarks Lord Houghton, " that 
the English aristocracy might have gone the way of their 
order all over Europe, but for the two M's, — minerals and 
marriage. There never was a novel with so little love in 
it as ' Endymion,' so many proposals of marriage, such 
unexpected and unearned accessions of wealth." 

Before closing this chapter, let me add a few words upon 
a subject that influenced all Lord Beaconsfield's writings, 
his personal characteristics, and, in part, his policy. 

24 



370 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" It is barely fifty years," said an English journalist, writing 
not long after Lord Beaconsfield's death, " since the Jews in 
England were considered outcasts; since they were throughout 
Europe legally disqualified for the offices which, indeed, a uni- 
versal prejudice would have rendered it impossible for them to 
hold : and now there is scarcely a State, except Russia, in which 
they are not, or have not been, ministers. Especially on the 
Continent do the Jews conduct journalism. In England at the 
time when eight hundred thousand English Roman Catholics 
had not a single English Roman Catholic in the House of Com- 
mons, eighty thousand English Jews had eight representives. 
The circumstances which for ages made the Jews dwellers in 
cities, and the oppressions which made wealth their only protec- 
tion, have combined to make them admirable men of business. 
They bring especial brains to the work, and especial habits of 
combination." 

A sort of great network of family interest enables the 
Jews to exercise control over the money markets and the 
jewel markets of the world. 

In politics they are mostly opportunists, willing to accept 
any form of government which admits of free careers ; and 
while anxious to obtain the largest attainable measure of 
material comfort, they aim to secure freedom, support, and 
education for the people. 

With Prince Bismarck's intense hatred of the Jews, it is 
a little amusing to think of the high consideration he showed 
Lord Beaconsfield at the Berlin Congress ; but his bitterness 
against the race has increased with his advancing years, 
backed by popular feeling in Germany and an opinion that 
prevails there that the Jews are in sympathy with the French, 
whom they helped to pay their war debt in 1872. 

In 1884, an institution was set on foot in England in 
memory of Lord Beaconsfield, with the title of " The Prim- 
rose League." The great day of the year for the demon- 
strations of this society is April 19, — the day of Lord 
Beaconsfield's death, and also his birthday. On this day 
his grave at Beaconsfield is heaped with primroses, and his 
followers all wear them as a tribute to his memory. 

A few years ago the league was said to number seven 



LORD BEACOiYSFIELD. 37 1 

hundred thousand men, women, and children. The idea 
originated with Sir Henry Drummond Wolff (son of the 
great Jewish- Christian missionary) and Lord Randolph 
Churchill. 

" The Primrose League was founded," says a writer in 
one of the London journals, "under the idea that what had 
been done by fits and starts whenever an election came 
round should be carried through with continuous energy 
in the intervals," — that is to say, in plain English, that 
social influence, very potent in English elections, should 
be carried on continuously for election purposes. 

"The friends of the candidates," continues the journalist, 
" both men and women, are to be all things to all men and their 
wives. Gentlemen and ladies of social position visit shop- 
keepers, artisans, farmers, laborers, and their wives ; talk with 
them freely and pleasantly, show interest in their concerns, and 
end by asking them for votes. 

" The League proposes to make this work, done so often in 
elections, a perpetuity. That duchesses and washerwomen, the 
squire's lady and the blacksmith's wife, should be linked together 
in clubs, excursions, and picnics in semi-social, semi-political 
gatherings, not only at election time, but all the year round ; 
that they should belong to the same league, wear the same 
badge, sing or Hsten to the same songs, and glow with fervor in 
the same cause." 

This view of the League is not exactly a friendly one ; 
but here is an account of a Primrose League celebration 
in Warwickshire, on the 19th of April, 1888, looked on 
with more kindly eyes : -^ — 

" Nothing in the whole kingdom of flowers is lovelier than the 
yellow primrose of Warwickshire, — the ' pale primrose ' of 
Shakespear. Its size, its delicate color, accentuated by deeper 
color in its midst, its pronounced and elegant outline, render it 
very effective for decorative purposes. And what was Beacons- 
field, if not decorative ? 

" At Leamington, which is almost the central spot of Eng- 
land, primroses seemed universal. The local branch of the 

1 The Outlook (Christian Union). 



372 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Primrose League kept open house that day at the Town Hall. 
Primroses bloomed in the windows among the cauliflowers and 
potatoes of the greengrocers, in the windows of the draper, and 
among the sirloins and legs of mutton on the butchers' stalls. 
The jewellers displayed primrose jewelry of every description, — 
a single primrose, a cluster of primroses, a primrose with the 
motto, ' Peace with Honor.' Many of the beautiful carriage- 
horses were decorated with primroses, while their drivers wore 
bouquets of them in their button-holes. The children, too, caught 
the infection ; for the girls and boys in England assume tlieir 
childish part in politics. 

" I saw a jolly little pair standing at a street-corner. They 
looked about ten years old. The boy had his small bouquet of 
primroses pinned firmly on his breast, and was fastening that of 
the little girl to the shoulder of her coat. I thought. Where 
will the Primrose League be when the boy is old enough to be a 
voter ? 

" The staircase and lobby of the Town Hall were covered with 
primroses. In the hall hung a dreadful portrait of Queen Vic- 
toria, draped with primrose silk. Intermingled with the prim- 
roses and banners on the walls were the crown, the Prince of 
Wales' feathers, and the earl's coronet of Beaconsfield. A 
portrait and a bust of the late Earl were also there, honored with 
flags and flowers. 

" The orator of the day told us that the especial glory of the 
Primrose League was that it included every class in the land, 
from the highest to the laborer. He called upon the laborer 
and the laborer's wife to work for its extension. He said that 
already it numbered many laborers among its members. 

" Feeling a little doubtful about this, I asked an intelligent 
laborer's wife, living in a hamlet made up of laborer's cottages;, 
how many of them belonged to the Primrose League. 'None,' 
was the reply. I then repeated the statement of the M. P. 
' If there are any laborers in the Primrose League,' she said, 
' they joined it just because they were expected to.' " 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE SECOND CABUL MASSACRE. 

TN the autumn of 1842, Lord Ellenborough, under instruc- 
■'• tions from the ministry of the Duke of Wellington and 
Sir Robert Peel, proclaimed that, finding Shah Soojah and 
his family were not the choice of the Afghan people, the 
English armies, after punishing the massacres of their Resi- 
dent and their people, would withdraw from Cabul, set Dost 
Mohammed at liberty, and leave the Afghans to choose 
what ruler they would. Their choice fell at once on Dost 
Mohammed, and he accordingly remounted his throne. 
He made a treaty of peace and alliance with the English, 
and continued true to them as long as he lived. Shere Ali, 
one of his sons, succeeded him. With great prudence, he 
resolved to exclude foreigners, both English and Russian, 
as much as possible from his dominions. But under the 
circumstances in which he was placed, this was attempting 
the impossible. 

No sooner Avas the Turkish war of 1877-78 ended, and 
Russia checkmated, after her large expenditure of money 
and blood, by Beaconsfield and Bismarck in the Congress of 
Berlin, than her rulers set themselves more perseveringly 
and patiently than ever to push her power towards the East, 
and gain communication with the Pacific Ocean and the 
Indian seas. Between Persia and British India lies Afghan- 
istan, — a " land of the mountain and the flood," the Switzer- 
land of Asia. Herat, one of its three chief cities, is on the 
direct road to Bushire, the chief port on the Persian Gulf. 

Turkestan, or, as it was called in my young days, Inde- 
pendent Tartary, has been the scene of Russian military 
operations for the last half century. By 1865 Russia had 
acquired the northern part of this Independent Tartary, and 



374 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

then she took Tashkent and Khokan, which brought her 
possessions near the Khanate of Bokhara, while over the 
mountains lay Kashgar and Yarkand. In 1868, Samarcand 
and Bokhara were taken. Khiva alone of the Khanates 
remained independent; but in 1873 three Russian columns 
were marched against it. One perished of heat and thirst ; 
one came near doing so ; the third succeeded. 

General Skobeleff, while employed in these wars, early 
conceived the idea that if Russia could obtain paramount 
influence in Afghanistan, she might, in the event of a war 
with England, march armies into British India through that 
country, as Napoleon had once proposed to Alexander I., 
or she might barter her influence in Afghanistan with Eng- 
land for the consent of the English to her acquisition of 
Constantinople. 

During the year 1877, when Russia was occupied with 
the Turkish war, the English Government, having ventured 
on some remonstrances concerning Russia's advances in the 
East, was answered roughly by Prince Gortschakoff, that 
" while he had a whale to look after, he could not trouble 
himself about the little fishes." But he very seriously con- 
cerned himself about the little fishes, notwithstanding. A 
Russian embassy was being fitted out to conciliate Shere 
Ali ; and if the Treaty of Berlin had been wholly unsatisfac- 
tory to Russia, all her plans were made for an advance on 
India, for stirring up its Native populations against the 
British, and assuming a strong influence, if not authority, in 
Afghanistan. 

But to return to the internal affairs of Afghanistan, which, 
up to 1866, had remained in a comparatively peaceful state 
for twelve years. Dost Mohammed, who, after his return 
to his throne in 1842, had remained faithful to his alliance 
with the English, died in 1863. He had named his son 
Shere Ali as his successor. Even at that time Shere Ali 
was considered the one of his sons who was least friendly 
to the English ; but his brother Azim had been always in 
their favor, and was the only one of the Afghan chiefs who 
had endeavored to prevent the murder of Sir William 



THE SECOND CABUL MASSACRE. 375 

Macnaughten. He was living in British India at the 
time of his father's death, and was confident that the 
English would support his claim to the succession. But 
the English had had enough of interfering with the suc- 
cession to the throne of Afghanistan, and the Viceroy of 
India declared in substance that the Afghans must settle 
their affairs their own way, and that England would sup- 
port whichever ruler could obtain and keep the throne. 
This obliviousness of Azim Khan's past services probably 
first impressed the Afghans with the idea that England 
was a thankless power. 

In 1864, Shere Ah was chief Ameer, and the other sons 
of Dost Mohammed had all withdrawn from court and 
shut themselves up in strongholds in the hills. The two 
most formidable were Azful Khan and Azim, the latter of 
whom had inherited the talent of his father. As soon as 
spring opened, Shere Ali sent expeditions against both 
these princes. Azim was defeated, and took refuge in 
British India. Azful's stronghold was in Northern Afghan- 
istan, beyond the hills. After some fighting, an agree- 
ment was reached by the brothers, by which Azful was 
to be allowed to retain the government of that part of 
Northern x'\fghanistan called Balkh. 

Azful had a son, Abderrahman Khan, a young chief of 
great promise and spirit (the present ruler of Cabul). 
Abderrahman Khan would not yield to his uncle, like his 
father, but fled to the Russians on the Oxus, which so 
enraged Shere Ah that he seized on the unfortunate Azful 
and put him in prison. 

All 1864 and 1865 Shere Ali was beset by enemies, and 
lived in a weltering chaos of insurrection. In the summer 
of 1865 he fought a great battle and defeated two of 
his brothers and a nephew ; but the victory was dearly 
purchased, for in the mel^e his favorite son and des- 
tined heir, Fyz Mohammed, was pistolled by one of his 
own uncles. 

This event produced such a shock upon the mind of 
Shere Ali that his spirit was completely broken. During 



376 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the rest of the war he took no interest in the opera- 
tions of his enemies, or in the counter-operations of his 
friends. 

" Buried in the seclusion of inner chambers, he admitted none 
but a few personal attendants within his sight ; and if at inter- 
vals he broke silence, it was only to wish, with a burst of Nero- 
like ferocity, that he could cut the throat of every man in Cabul 
and Candahar ; or to declare, with utter despondency, that he 
would depart out of Afghanistan, and learn to forget his home 
and people in England, Russia, or in the Holy Land of Arabia. 
One night he jumped into a tank, and began groping under 
water in search of his dead son. His guards rescued him, but 
he remained insensible for some time afterwards." 

Meantime, Prince Abderrahman was not unlike the 
Young Chevalier. He raised an army in Bokhara, and 
invaded Afghanistan to set his father free. He released 
him, indeed ; but Azful Khan's mind and strength had 
given way in his captivity. During this time the English 
had carefully abstained from any interference for or against 
either party, — a policy which Shere Ali resented, because, 
had he even had the annual pension of ;^6o,ooo accorded 
to his father by the English Government, it would have 
gone far in assisting him to keep himself on the throne. 

Azim Khan in his turn endeavored to gain the support of 
the English by pointing out to them their danger from the 
Russian advance, and promising, if he were the Ameer of 
Afghanistan, that he would do all in his power to oppose 
the Russians. But the English Government was not to be 
drawn into Afghan politics. Azim got the better of his 
brother for a brief period, and sat on the throne of Cabul ; 
then the tide turned again in Shere All's favor, chiefly 
owing to the energy and superior talents of his son, Yakoob 
Khan. The rebellious princes, however, still held Afghan- 
istan beyond the mountains; but by 1868 the English 
Government was alarmed by the advancing power of the 
Russians. Lord Mayo, being appointed Viceroy of India, 
established a fast friendship with Shere Ali, which was, 



THE SECOND CABUL MASSACRE. 377 

however, only to last until the death of poor Lord Mayo, 
who was stabbed by a convict while inspecting a penal 
settlement in the Andaman Isles. Shere Ali had said 
during his brief exile : — 

"The English seek only their own interests. They keep 
their friendship for the strongest, and they change with the 
changes of fortune. I will not waste precious life in enter- 
taining false hopes of assistance from the English, and will 
seek alliances with other Powers." 

This state of mind had been cultivated in him by Russian 
agents, by embassies, by flatteries, by letters of congratu- 
lation. But as long as Lord Mayo lived, who, with all his 
natural heartiness and energy, had thrown himself into a 
personal friendship with Shere Ali, any breach in the rela- 
tions of England with Afghanistan was postponed. 

All seemed prosperous with Shere Ali ; all seemed to 
favor the leading idea of England's northern Indian policy, 
which is that as Switzerland is a neutral country, a barrier 
between jealous and contending nations, so Afghanistan, 
the Switzerland of the East, should become a barrier be- 
tween Russia in Central Asia and British India. 

Lord Mayo, one of whose last acts was to hold a durbar 
at Umballa and make a firm alliance with Shere Ali, was 
succeeded by Lord Northbrook, in whom Shere Ali no 
longer found a personal friend. It is needless to enter into 
all the causes of dispute between the Ameer and the new 
Viceroy. The latter persisted in declaring that there was 
no danger to British India from Russia, in refusing the 
Ameer's demands for men and money, and treating very 
coldly his plan for setting aside his eldest son, Yakoob Khan, 
as his successor, in favor of a very young son whom he 
dearly loved, Abdullah Jan. The correspondence between 
the Ameer and the Viceroy was sometimes almost insolent 
upon Shere All's part ; always cold and stately on the part 
of the Viceroy. It is manifest that the parties cordially 
disliked and distrusted each other. The Russians mean- 
time turned all this to their advantage. As the English 



3/8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

seemed disposed to favor Yakoob Khan's claim to the suc- 
cession, the Russians, to conciliate Shere Ali, favored Ab- 
dullah Jan. The latter was proclaimed heir-apparent in 
1873, and soon after Yakoob broke into rebellion. This 
was put down, and Yakoob was imprisoned four years by 
his father, after which he escaped, and fled into Russian 
territory. 

It had been a great object with the English to put resi- 
dent agents into Herat, Cabul, and Candahar. Shere Ali 
was equally resolved they should do nothing of the sort. 
In the year 1878 he believed in a coming war between 
England and Russia, and carefully sat on the fence, ready 
to drop down on the winning side. But Jingoism satisfied 
itself with peace with honor. 

Meantime Skobeleff was again in Turkestan, laying siege 
to the vast stronghold of Goek Topi ; he had not forgot- 
ten his views of the importance to his country of strongly 
cementing a friendship with the ruler of Afghanistan, who- 
ever he might be ; and, to that end, he sent to the court 
at Cabul the young Ali Khan, or Alikanoff, a Russian 
officer who had greatly distinguished himself. 

How far Alikanoff induced Shere Ali to compromise 
himself by promises of alliance with the Russians is un- 
known ; but undoubtedly in his heart he preferred the 
Russian alliance to the English. 

Meantime Lord Beaconsfield, in pursuance of his Indian 
policy, was determined to secure for British India what is 
known as " the scientific frontier ; " that is, a northern 
and northwestern boundary defended by mountains, the 
passes through which the British should hold. 

The English Viceroy sent a polite intimation to the 
Ameer that Queen Victoria had added Empress of India to 
her titles ; but Shere Ali, who was again suffering domes- 
tic sorrow (his boy Abdullah Jan having died), returned 
little or no answer. Then it was determined to send a 
diplomatic Mission to Cabul, to insist on British residents 
being received at court and at Herat and Candahar. 
This Mission was accompanied by a thousand soldiers. 



THE SECOND CABUL MASSACRE. 379 

commanded by Sir Neville Chamberlain. When, in 1878, 
it reached the frontier of Afghanistan, the officials refused 
to let it pass without express orders from Shere Ali. 
Shere Ali delayed giving these orders. The English Home 
Government was telegraphed to for instructions. The 
result was that England took the position that her envoy 
and his Mission had been insulted. Troops were marched 
forward to join those with the Mission ; Jellalabad and 
some other Afghan posts at the foot of the mountains on 
the India side were taken, and the peaceful Mission became 
an invasion. The English occupied Cabul and Candahar 
without difficulty, being very little opposed by the Afghans, 
and Shere Ali fled away beyond the mountains into Balkh, 
where soon afterwards he died, — some said by poison ; 
but it is more likely that his misfortunes, acting upon his 
excitable temperament, caused his bodily powers to give 
way. Shere Ali was a man of royal presence and singular 
physiognomy. His appearance and his gestures showed a 
strange mixture of ferocity and kindliness, gravity and gayety. 
His features were handsome and even kingly ; his eyes keen 
and black ; his beard soft and silky. He was a man who 
had noble instincts and wild passions. He had no doubt 
played fast and loose with both the Russians and the Eng- 
lish ; but that he would have called statecraft and policy. 
Statecraft is, however, a game safe only for great players. 

Yakoob Khan, even before his father's death, had pre- 
sented himself in the English camp at Gaudamah, at the 
foot of the Afghan range, and signed a treaty of alliance 
with the English, granting them agents in Herat, Cabul, 
and Candahar, and pledging the contracting parties to 
assist each other. The moment the treaty was signed, the 
new ruler of Afghanistan departed for Cabul, and the 
treaty, placed in a tin box, was strapped to the back of 
a messenger, Mr. Jenkyns, a Scotchman of the Bengal 
Civil Service, who rode away with it gayly and joyfully, 
making a hundred miles in thirteen hours to Peshawar, 
whence it was transmitted to the Viceroy, then staying at 
Simla, the cool station in the Hills. 



380 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

We read of men riding with black care behind them ; 
poor Jenkyns little thought that in the tin box at his back 
he carried war, not peace, and his own death-warrant. 

When Yakoob Khan was firmly seated on his throne a 
new English Mission was sent to greet him. The Mission 
entered Cabul on July 24, 1879, and was received with 
every demonstration of welcome and enthusiasm. Sir 
Louis Cavagnari was at its head, and Jenkyns was his 
secretary. The Mission was escorted by only twenty-six 
native troopers, and fifty infantry of the Guides. There was 
no English force in Cabul (though British troops were dis- 
persed here and there through Afghanistan in considerable 
numbers), and the escort had been made purposely small, 
that the Afghans might have no ground for suspecting that 
the English came as conquerors, or with any intention of 
overawing their new ruler. The buildings intended for 
the residence of the envoy were not ready ; the Mission 
therefore was assigned quarters in buildings wholly un- 
adapted for defence. 

"By Yakoob Khan and his durbar — as a privy council is 
called in India — the embassy was treated with every mark of 
consideration. The intercourse between His Highness and Sir 
Louis Cavagnari was frequent and cordial. No apprehensions 
whatever were entertained for their own safety by members of 
the Mission, who freely showed themselves in the streets of 
Cabul, nor did they find any grounds for believing that the pop- 
ular feeling was averse to their presence. They knew, of course, 
that there were dangerous classes in Cabul, and turbulent ele- 
ments in Afghanistan; but they believed the Ameer's authority 
would be respected in his capital, and that the country south 
of the Paropamisus hills was safe from disturbances." 

But the Afghans are an excitable people. The sight of 
a mere street quarrel will work the spectators sometimes 
into a frenzy. On September 3, not six weeks after the 
Mission had made its entry into Cabul, a body of soldiers 
from Herat and its neighborhood, indignant at the non- 
payment of their arrears of pay, and believing that the 
Ameer had received funds from the English Government, 



THE SECOND CABUL MASSACRE. 38 1 

sought redress for their grievances. Receiving no atten- 
tion from the Ameer, they turned to the British Embassy, 
which they presumed to be well provided with the ne- 
cessary funds. Whether they were instigated to this by 
cunning chiefs, or whether it was the mere soldiers' instinct 
to go straight in search of the military chest, we do not 
know. It is no uncommon practice in semi-barbarous 
countries for soldiers in distress for their arrears of pay 
to threaten their Government ; and the fact that the soldiers 
assailed the Resident, and not the Ameer, on this occasion, 
proves that they looked upon the British as paymasters, in 
the altered condition of Afghan affairs. 

'•On Wednesday, September 3, the mutinous regiments sur- 
rounded the British Mission house, and, ill adapted as the 
Mission quarters were for defence, the gallant little garrison 
held the place against their foes for a whole day, fighting des- 
perately, and killing more of their assailants than they were 
themselves. The whole city was in wild confusion. Yakoob 
Khan insisted afterwards that he was besieged in his house, 
and unable to render any assistance to the English Mission. 
He sent, however, a General Daood Shah to endeavor to pacify 
the troops ; but he was unhorsed and nearly murdered. Then 
he sent the Governor of Cabul, his own father-in-law, on the 
same errand; but nothing effectual could be done. The struggle 
was a desperate one, — the British soldiers fighting for their 
lives. Sir Louis Cavagnari was wounded about mid-day, and 
probably perished in the final assault, as he lay disabled from 
his wound. Jenkyns contrived to send a letter to the Ameer, 
asking for assistance, and the Ameer returned the pious answer, 
' If God will, I am making preparations.' The assault and the 
defence went on all day; at night the building was set on fire, 
and in the confusion the mutineers succeeded in getting in 
and massacring those who survived of the defenders. A few 
troopers only escaped." 

Whether Yakoob Khan was at the bottom of this mas- 
sacre, or favored it, hoping it would turn out to his advan- 
tage, is not known. Subsequent investigations caused the 
English Government to depose him. He himself wrote to 
the Viceroy a week after the massacre : — 



382 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" I am dreadfully distressed and aggrieved at recent events, 
but there is no fighting against God's will. Eight days I have 
preserved self and family, through the good offices of those who 
were friendly to me. I hope to inflict such punishment on the 
evil-doers as will be known world-wide, and prove my sincerity. 
Some of the cavalry I have dismissed, and night and day am 
considering how to put matters straight. I trust to God for an 
opportunity of showing my sincere friendship to the British 
Government, and securing my good name before the world." 

In spite of these pious assurances, Yakoob was very gen- 
erally believed to be secretly in league with the rebels ; 
and the moment a rising against the British was on foot, 
national fanaticism joined heart and soul in it. There 
were fakirs and prophets proclaiming the war a holy war 
against the infidel. But the tribes that had most come 
under English influence remained faithful to England. 

Prompt measures were taken by the Government of 
Lord Beaconsfield, such as drew forth praises even from 
French journals. " Greatness is expensive," said the 
" Journal des D^bats ; " " and England, being vulnerable 
at so many places, must know how to defend herself by 
diplomacy or war. Lord Beaconsfield has tried to incul- 
cate this. He has given England the feeling of possible 
danger." 

General Sir Frederick Roberts was put in command of 
a large force, and marched as soon as camels and other 
means of transport could be obtained. Cabul was soon 
reached and taken possession of. It is a city entirely sur- 
rounded by high mountains, but it Hes at the foot of the 
small, steep conical hill on which is built the Bala Hissar. 
Yakoob was arrested and sent to India ; so was Daood 
Shah, his attempts to stop the recent massacre being 
considered, on investigation, to have been a mere feint. 
He was an old man of good presence and a pleasant coun- 
tenance. The Bala Hissar was occupied by ten thousand 
British troops, but the larger part of the army was en- 
camped at Shahpur, a sort of permanent intrenched camp, 
a mile and a half outside the city. It had been planned by 



THE SECOND CABUL MASSACRE. 383 

Shere Ali to hold seventy thousand men, and its defences 
were partially completed. The place was surrounded for 
some weeks by a large force of Afghans, who, finding they 
could effect nothing, day by day melted away. 

Things before long seemed again going on peaceably in 
Afghanistan. Chiefs, seeing the success of the British, sent 
in their submission, or rather brought it themselves, into 
camp. Shops were reopened in Cabul, trade was busy in 
the Bazaar ; a large force of tribesmen, having turned their 
swords and lances into spades and picks, were at work 
upon the roads ; the English doctors had opened a hospi- 
tal and a dispensary, where they not only worked busily, 
curing the wounds of friend and foe, but treating all kinds 
of cases and healing all manner of diseases and suffering ; 
a telegraph line also was being set up between Cabul and 
Peshawar. 

The attention of the Government had, however, been 
chiefly fixed on the great question. Who should be made 
Ameer of Afghanistan? 

I have already told how Azful Khan, father of Abderrah- 
man Khan, rebelled against Shere Ali, his brother ; how, when 
forced to submit, Abderrahman refused to follow his ex- 
ample, and escaped into Russian territory, whence, return- 
ing with an army, he released his father, Azful, who, broken 
in mind and body, went into retirement, while for two years 
Abderrahman and his uncle Azim ruled jointly in Cabul. 
Shere Ali, however, recovered his throne, and Abderrahman 
went back to the Russians, who received him kindly, gave 
him a liberal pension, and extended to him their protection. 
He was the ablest prince of his family, and on him the Eng- 
lish Government had fixed its eyes. To make him Ameer 
seemed a somewhat rash experiment, for he had lived so 
many years among the Russians that he might naturally be 
supposed to be under their influence ; but the choice, so far as 
English interests are concerned, has answered well. Abder- 
rahman still reigns. He has made an able, though a cruel 
ruler, and under him Afghanistan has given no further 
trouble to the Viceroy of India or the British Government. 



384 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

That Government in 1880 decided to negotiate with Abder- 
rahman, who had made his escape from the protection of 
the Russians, and, with a small army of exiled Afghans 
and his personal friends, was beyond the mountains in 
Northern Afghanistan. Having been privately informed of 
the British intentions concerning him, he slowly advanced 
with his small force towards Cabul. His position was a 
difficult one. He was carrying on negotiations with the 
English, and at the same time was aware that if his alliance 
with them were known, it would cost him half his fanatical 
followers. However, as he approached Cabul it was 
thought best to risk everything and to make public the 
English intention of raising him to the throne. There was 
at that time with Sir Frederick Roberts an English gentle- 
man afterwards knighted as Sir Lepel Griffin, who subse- 
quently wrote so foolish a book about a journey he made 
through the United States that did we know nothing else 
about him we should hardly be disposed to trust his judg- 
ment or his observation. But in India he knew that of 
which he wrote. He was the political agent appointed by 
the British Government to announce pubHcly to Abderrah- 
man that their choice had fallen upon him to succeed Yakoob 
Khan on the throne of Afghanistan. Mr. Griffin was there- 
fore instructed to proclaim him Ameer of Afghanistan in 
Cabul, on July 22, 1880. A few days later was received 
news of the battle of Meiwand, near Candahar, fought July 
24, 1880. Of one British regiment, the Sixty-sixth, the Berk- 
shire regiment, as it was called, 275 men were killed out of 
364 who went into action. The fighting was desperate on 
the part of the English ; the struggle at the last was to save, 
not their lives, but their colors. Of fourteen officers who 
in turn carried them, eleven were killed. 

The defeat of this gallant force did not, however, alter 
the predetermined policy of Sir Frederick Roberts. He 
marched his force at Shahpur to Candahar, brought away 
the garrison, including the broken remains of the defeated 
column, and then marched towards India, leaving orders 
to Sir Donald Stewart in the Bala-Hissar to withdraw his 



THE SECOND CABUL MASSACRE. 385 

troops as soon as Abderrahman should be firm upon his 
throne. 

There were many persons who blamed the policy which 
gave up Candahar when the English had once got posses- 
sion of it, but the English Government was determined not 
to be caught again in the web of Afghan politics, and was 
satisfied with having an English Resident at Cabul, and 
English agents at Candahar and Herat. 

Here is how Sir Lepel Griffin first met the new Ameer, 
about two days' journey from Cabul : — 

" He appeared walking slowly and heavily, a large, Falstaffian, 
genial-looking man, with bright eyes and Jewish features, wear- 
ing the Astrakan fur cap, which is usual among Afghans of rank, 
and a blue uniform coat with gold epaulettes, probably a present 
from one of his Russian friends at Tashkend. He saluted me 
in military fashion, and then shook hands with much cordiality. 
. . . From the first moment that 1 saw him I had taken a liking 
to him, and had formed a most favorable impression of his char- 
acter. His face, somewhat coarse and heavy in repose, lighted 
up, when he smiled, in a very winning fashion, and his eyes were 
full of fun and vivacity. His conversation showed him at once 
to be a man of much knowledge of men and the world. His esti- 
mate of the persons regarding whom we conversed was reason- 
able and shrewd ; while through his whole bearing there was 
clearlv visible much natural good humor and bonhomie. He 
evidently had a very high, perhaps exaggerated, opinion of his 
own wisdom, and it was exceedingly difficult to make him change 
his opinion on any subject which he had considered at all closely. 
The subsequent career of Abderrahman has not induced me to 
alter materially the opinion I formed of him during our first in- 
terview. He has proved a stern, determined ruler, and a most 
cruel one, if judged from an English standpoint. But if the 
character of the Afghans — their ferocity, fanaticism, ignorance, 
and impatience of control — be considered, it will be admitted 
that in no other manner could the Ameer have tnaintained his 
position and brought order out of the most hopeless and dis- 
cordant elements that ever existed in any country. The vanitv 
and pride of the man are phenomenal, but they may be excused 
in one whose success has amply justified his self-confidence. 
He has thoroughly understood the people he had to govern. 
He has ruled them, as he assured me they alone could be ruled, 

25 



386 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

with the stick. In this direction he has certainly shown 
extraordinary energy; and where Ameer Shere Ali beat his 
people with whips, Ameer Abderrahman has scourged them 
with scorpions." 

The chief men of the turbulent clan of the Ghilzees he 
decoyed into his power and destroyed them utterly. The 
English seated him on his throne, relieved Candahar, drew 
oif the remains of the column that had suffered at Meiwand, 
and peaceably withdrew their armies. 

The English within the last few years have established 
a protectorate over Beloochistan. Not that Beloochistan is 
worth anything, for it is as sandy as the bed of the ocean ; 
but it contains a place called Quetta, and Quetta is supposed 
to be a backdoor to the possession of what is called the Key 
of India, viz., Herat. 



CHAPTER XV. 

MR. GLADSTONE. 

A /TR. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, born in 1809, 
^^■^ has been for more than sixty years in political harness, 
and for half a century very prominently before the world. 

He is not an "opportunist," — for opportunists change 
their tactics according to circumstances, without changing 
their convictions. Their course may be called a system of 
tacking, — keeping an end in view while apparently steering 
away from it ; but Mr. Gladstone's course has always followed 
strong convictions, — and those convictions have, in sixty 
years, travelled nearly the whole round of views in politics, 
and the ecclesiastical part of religion. 

Mr. Gladstone's life has been purely a political life, with 
very few picturesque points in it to excite our sympathies, or 
break the monotony of alternate changes between office and 
the Opposition. Besides, to a great extent we have gone 
over the same ground of English history in considering the 
career of Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone's first leader, and 
that of Lord Beaconsfield, his rival ; yet Gladstone had been 
in cabinets, and was a man of power in the state, while 
Beaconsfield was still the butt of " Punch," and a standing 
joke in the House of Commons. 

The Gladstone family, though fallen in fortunes, was yet 
descended from the landed gentry of southern Scotland. 
Some generations back his people were maltsters in Lanark- 
shire, — substantial, pious, prosperous men. One of them 
was a kirk elder, and prominent in public affairs. Their 
successors became grain-merchants. Mr. Gladstone's grand- 
father was in that business at Leith, the port of Edinburgh, 
and his father was on his way to sell a cargo of wheat at 
Liverpool when the opportunity occurred to him by which 



388 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

he rose from obscurity to wealth and prommence. His 
bearing and abiUty so impressed one of his fellow-travellers, 
who was a partner in a great trading firm in Liverpool, that 
on further acquaintance he was taken into the house, which 
eventually became the great firm of Gladstone and Co. 
Mr. Gladstone settled in Liverpool. He became Sir John 
Gladstone, and married a Miss Robertson, from the extreme 
north of Scotland, who claimed descent from the historian, 
from Henry IH., and from Robert Bruce. 

However that might be, the Gladstones were distin- 
guished for business virtues, integrity, clear-sightedness, 
enterprise, prudence, and thrift. They were also a family 
possessed of exceptionally good bodily powers. 

Sir John Gladstone became a leading merchant in Liver- 
pool, trafficking in all parts of the world, and owning large 
sugar plantations in Demerara. He was an earnest sup- 
porter of Mr. Canning, and his personal friend. 

Little William was three years old when Canning was 
elected to Parliament for Liverpool. He was ten years 
older when Canning became Foreign Secretary, in 1822. 
Already Sir John Gladstone loved to talk poHtics with his 
clever little son, and to instil into him his own views of the 
career of his friend Canning ; so that the boy started in life 
with four political principles, — hatred to Turks ; aspirations 
for Greeks ; freedom all the world over j but no parliamen- 
tary reforms at home. 

In 1 82 1, when twelve years old, he went to Eton, where 
he remained six years. Any picture of school-life at Eton 
in his day is sickening ; yet it contrived to turn out some 
splendid men. Arthur Hallam was Gladstone's dearest 
friend. Others of his schoolfellows whose names are 
known to us were Selwyn, the future Bishop of New Zea- 
land, Manning, the future Cardinal, and several other 
bishops and leading men of name and fame in the after 
history of England, But the education Eton afforded at that 
day was very low, and its moral training was such that it 
needed an exceptionally fine moral nature, like those of 
William Gladstone and his two elder brothers, Thomas and 




WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. 



MR. GLADSTONE. 389 

Robertson, to withstand its contaminating influences ; while 
its religious training was absolutely nil. 

Gladstone's own tutor was the Rev. Henry Knapp, a 
man as little " reverend " as can be imagined. He and 
another master were given to all sorts of wild pranks, to 
which they sometimes admitted a favorite pupil. Knapp 
loved drink and theatres and prize-fights and horse-races ; 
defending his love for the last two by saying that without 
familiarity with them no boy could understand the Olym- 
pic games. Knapp finally (seven years after Gladstone 
left Eton) got into disgrace for his debts, and ended by 
carrying off all the money he could rescue from his credi- 
tors, to Elba. He died in Rome in 1846. It is to be 
hoped that by that time he had laid to heart the high ideal 
of a schoolmaster incarnated in Dr. Arnold. 

The position of Gladstone under such a teacher, and in 
an unsatisfactory " house," threw him upon himself for 
moral culture and for the attainment of general infor- 
mation. In those days no mathematics and no history 
were taught at Eton ; no instruction was given in Scrip- 
ture or modern languages, but little in arthmetic, while 
nothing about literature or science was then taught. The 
only thing rigorously demanded by the school was excel- 
lence in making Latin verses, and a thorough acquaintance 
with Homer, Virgil, and Horace. 

We may all be thankful for the attention William Glad- 
stone paid to Homer. The rest of his education he must 
have acquired for himself. Dr. Keate was the head-master. 
He was a man noted for his indiscriminate flogging. 

" Etonians of sixty years as:o," says a writer in the " Fort- 
nightly Review," "were pretty much what Keate himself made 
them. By his system of igfnoring mountains and mau;nifying 
molehills ; of overlooking heinous moral offences and flogging 
unmercifully for peccadilloes, he caused bovs to lose all sense 
of proportion as to the delinquencies they committed. What could 
be expected from such a system ? If it be true that Keate was 
in private life gracious, sensible, and modest, he is the more to 
blame for having done violence to his nature, so as to appear in 



390 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tlie discharge of his public duties a graceless, senseless, cruel 
little martinet. Of his fondness for flogging there can be very 
little doubt, and as no boy, even the q'lietest and best-behaved, 
was safe from his capricious rod, a quibbling spirit was developed 
amongst those who felt themselves to be in danger of his casti- 
gations, without having deserved them." 

Here is a description of Sunday at Eton in Mr. Glad- 
stone's time : — 

"The boys used to lie in bed till nearly ten on Sunday. At 
half-past ten they attended service in the chapel, rushing in 
helter-skelter at the last stroke of the bell ; shoving one another, 
laughing, and making as much noise as possible. The noble- 
men, or 'nobs,' and the sixth form occupied stalls, and it was 
customary that every occupant of a stall should, on taking 
his seat for the first time, distribute among his neighbors 
packets of almonds and raisins, which were eaten during the 
service.^'' 

As I said, Mr. Gladstone's dearest friend at Eton was 
Arthur Hallam, the charm of whose manners and conversa- 
tion seems to have been to all men very great. " He had," 
says one who knew him, " all the exuberance of boyhood, 
with a feminine sweetness of disposition, and a judgment of 
surprising lucidity, so that, as Sir Francis Doyle said of 
him, he appeared to turn the rays of a clear, fragrant torch 
on any question that he touched." Gladstone bore him 
great love, and for his sake took little part in the athletic 
sports of the school. These two, and a few other boys 
of intellectual tastes and moral purity, linked themselves 
in close companionship. They were enthusiasts at that 
time for the Greeks, and mourned the death of Byron at 
Missolonghi. 

Soon after this event, Canning, then Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, came down to Eton, and found time to have nearly 
an hour's chat with William Gladstone, as the son of his old 
friend. That day made the deepest impression on young 
William, who at seventeen years of age was beginning to 
have political aspirations. As he listened to Canning's 
advice and his remarks upon the leading topics of the 



MR. GLADSTONE. 39 1 

day, the impressions made on him became lasting and com- 
plete. Canning drew pictures of future progress, under 
parliamentary institutions, for Greece and for the Spanish 
repubUcs of South America, which he had taken under his 
protection, — miserable little weaklings which have never 
justified his love. 

One thing that Canning said, Gladstone laid deeply to 
heart for use in future years : " Give plenty of time to 
your verses. Every good copy you do will set in your 
memory some poetical thought or some well-turned form 
of speech which you will find useful when you speak in 
public." 

This visit of Mr. Canning's led to Gladstone's starting 
the " Eton Miscellany," as Canning had started the " Micro- 
cosm " in his Eton days. The editorial productions in the 
*' Eton Miscellany " were most extraordinary. " Here," says 
the writer in the " Fortnightly Review," "was a set of boys, 
living under the rod of a pompous, tyrannical doctor of 
divinity, who yet were allowed a liberty not enjoyed by the 
greatest thinkers elsewhere, of pronouncing condemnation 
on the rulers of their country." 

Mr. Gladstone's own Ode on Wat Tyler is an amazing 
production. Here is one of its verses. Thistlewood and 
Ings the butcher had been hanged in 1820 for conspiracy 
to murder all the ministers, including the Duke of Welling- 
ton and Mr. Canning.^ The poem would be rather strong 
in these days, even for a Nihihst publication. 

" I hymn the gallant and the good, 
From Tyler down to Thistlewood ; 
My Muse the trophies grateful sings, 
The deeds of Miller and of Ings. 
She sings of all who, soon or late, 

Have burst subjection's iron chain ; 

Have sealed the bloody despot's fate, 

Or cleft a peer or priest in twain ! " 

And here is another poem by a pessimist contributor on 

Ireland : — 

^ Canning was then President of the Board of Control, but resigned 
before the Queen's trial. 



392 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

" Thus I thy destined woes reveal, 
Which Fate forbids me to conceal. 
I see no beam of cheery light 
_To dissipate the shades of night. 
Through unborn ages thou shalt be 
One round of endless misery." 

And Dr. Keate did not utter one word of censure on these 
poems ! 

It is fair, however, to say that Gladstone's prose contribu- 
tions to the " Miscellany" by no means breathed the same 
sentiments as his Nihilistic ode. His eulogy on Canning 
when he died was beautiful. Arthur Hallam, too, con- 
tributed some charming litde poems, — the " Death of a 
Charger" and "The Battle of the Boyne." 

Towards the close of Gladstone's school career, Keate 
became very proud of him ; and Gladstone founded a de- 
bating society which drew the attention of the elder boys 
to public speaking, literature, and politics. Indeed, Glad- 
stone had been trained to debating in his own home, where, 
a visitor has told us, " the children and the parents argued 
upon everything." He instances a debate on whether 
Thomas Gladstone had any right to kill a wasp he had 
knocked down with his handkerchief; the end of which was 
that the wasp escaped during the discussion. 

One thing which Sir John Gladstone inculcated on all his 
boys was to finish a thing begun, and to do it thoroughly. 
This quality young William took with him to Oxford, whither 
he went in 1829. 

There among his associates were Charles Wordsworth 
(subsequently a bishop). Cardinal Manning, Tait (after- 
wards Archbishop of Canterbury), Sir Francis Doyle, and 
other future celebrities. In 1827, Keble had just published 
"The Christian Year," and Canning had thrown the uni- 
versities into a ferment by his proposed measures for grant- 
ing civil liberties to Catholics. Politics ran very high at 
Oxford, mingled with much disloyalty and irreligiousness. 
One young student (subsequently a hard-working High- 
Church clergyman) had as a little ornament on his mantel- 



MR. GLADSTONE. 393 

piece a model guillotine. On the head of his college de- 
manding what this meant, he answered that it was an 
instrument to kill rats with, — a covert allusion to Hano- 
verian rats, the cant phrase for the line of Hanoverian kings. 

Gladstone at Oxford was counted one of the Tories, who 
were a majority among the undergraduates. He had re- 
nounced by this time his admiration for Tyler, Ings, and 
Thistlewood, and pointed out how the disturbances of 1830 
on the Continent furnished proof that all monarchical and 
ecclesiastical institutions were menaced by the new spirit of 
the age. 

In 1832, when the Reform Bill was first agitated, Glad- 
stone got up the Oxford Anti-Reform League, in company 
with two others, one of them Lord Lincoln. 

The great debating society at Oxford is the Union, and 
to this Mr. Gladstone was elected as soon as he was eligible. 
Members soon began to remark the singular excellence, 
volume, and clearness of his voice, which added immensely 
to his powers as a speaker. 

He was known at Oxford as a religious man, one excep- 
tionally regular in attendance at the University sermons at 
St. Mary's and at "Chapels." He was regular at Burton's 
Lectures on Divinity, and at Pusey's Lectures on Hebrew. 
He went many times to hear Rowland Hill, a great Methodist 
preacher, and Dr. Chalmers, the Presbyterian, when preach- 
ing at chapels of their own denominations ; and braved the 
risk of being expelled for doing so. 

At the final examination, Gladstone, as Sir Robert Peel had 
done, took a double-first, — first class in classics, first class in 
mathematics also. Cardinal Manning at the same examina- 
tion took a classical first. Gladstone had learned all his 
mathematics, besides optics, hydrostatics, trigonometry, and 
something of astronomy, during his residence at Oxford. 
His University honors helped greatly to give him a start in 
public life. 

Lnmediately after the examination he went with his friend 
Lord Lincoln (in conjunction with whom he had formed 
the Oxford Anti-Reform League) to visit Lord Lincoln's 



394 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

father, the Duke of Newcastle. The Duke had the pocket- 
borough of Newark then vacant, and put Mr. Gladstone at 
once into Parliament. 

The ballot, universal suffrage, and a national guard were 
the Tory bugbears at that period. Thirty years later, 
Gladstone, whom the idea of these things horrified in 1835, 
had fathered the ballot, more than doubled the number of 
English voters, and promoted the raising throughout the 
country of an immense army of volunteers. 

Gladstone had made a brilliant speech in the Union 
against Parliamentary Reform, and it was this speech which 
caused the Duke of Newcastle to regard him with great 
interest as a rising politician. When he was made mem- 
ber for Newark, Lord Lincoln was elected for South 
Nottingham. 

Gladstone's maiden speech in Parliament was made in 
defence of his father's interests as the owner of large 
sugar estates and many slaves in Demerara. He depre- 
cated immediate emancipation, and prophesied that it 
would not yield the beneficial results its friends expected 
from it. 

An old man, speaking of the great change in Mr. Glad- 
stone's politics from High Toryism in 1834 to advanced 
Radicalism at the present day, has said : — 

" I hardly see that he has changed more than a man would do 
who swims with the tide. The change occasioned in England 
by the railways between 1830 and 1845 was wonderful. Then 
you must not forget the accession of the Queen, which put 
a stop to disloyalty almost entirely. Before she came to the 
throne, numbers of men belonging to Whig families were quite 
ready to become Republicans. It was this growing republican- 
ism which gave so much uneasiness to young men like Glad- 
stone, who dissociated the idea of monarchy from the personahty 
of kings. As soon as Queen Victoria ascended the throne the 
change in public opinion was almost incredible. And the re- 
storation of the people's affections towards their sovereign, 
gave reformers much firmer standing ground than they pos- 
sessed before. They took up a position which proved that what 
they aimed at was reform, not revolution." 



Ml^. GLADSTONE. 395 

All this is true ; but equally true is the indictment drawn 
up against Mr. Gladstone by Mademoiselle Marie Dronsart, 
a recent French critic of the late Premier's career. 

"Mr. Gladstone has touched everything, and disturbed all he 
touched. As his friend Wilberforce predicted, he has labored 
to destroy everything that once was dear to him. He has im- 
perilled the Church, whose most dutiful servant he still claims 
to be ; the throne, ' the most illustrious on earth,' as he wrote 
to the poor young Duke of Clarence ; the unity of the empire, 
which he says is part of his being, of his flesh and of his blood ; 
the House of Lords, which is part of the industrial machinery 
of the Constitution, and which, according to Mr. Russell, he 
respects. He has stimulated the war of classes as it has never 
before been stimulated in England ; he has attacked the prin- 
ciples on which property is based, and sown dissension from a 
full hand, while he has preached peace and good-will." 

We shall see in the remainder of this brief sketch how, 
during the course of his long life, he has led his followers to 
support him in the accomplishment of these things. 

He entered Parliament as the devoted adherent of Sir 
Robert Peel, who by his great knowledge of the world, 
his patriotism, and his strong religious principle, seemed to 
his disciples the incarnation of statesmanship. 

Gladstone followed Peel through the grievous ordeal of the 
separation of the Conservatives from the High Tories on the 
question of the Corn Laws. In Gladstone's case, his fidelity 
to his leader was made bitter by estrangement from the 
father who adored him, and who exclaimed, with pain and 
indignation, " There 's my son William helping to ruin his 
country ! " As his course was not that which met the views 
of the Duke of Newcastle, his patron, he conceived himself 
bound in honor to resign his seat for Newark, the Duke's 
borough. But he brought over Lord Lincoln to his way of 
thinking, and the Duke's wrath was unspeakable against 
them both. All this took place in 1846, the year of 
Disraeli's rise to political prestige and influence. 

Almost from the time when he had entered Parliament, 
Gladstone had been a sub-officer in the cabinet whenever 
Peel was in power; but when, in 1845, ^^^ England was 



396 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

agitated by Peel's proposal to grant a larger subsidy for the 
education of Roman Catholic priests at the College of 
Maynooth than had ever been done before, Mr. Gladstone 
earnestly opposed the measure, and wrote a pamphlet to 
express his views. The argument used by the Government, 
when advocating the Maynooth Grant, was that if the Irish 
priests were well educated, and in their own country, they 
would exercise a more enhghtened influence upon the Irish 
peasantry. Mr. Gladstone resigned his position in the min- 
istry in consequence. But when we consider his after career, 
it is strange to find him, at the age of thirty-six, voting in 
opposition to Irish feeling, and in support of the prejudices 
of the Established Church in Ireland, whose interests he 
has since most bitterly and most successfully opposed. 

In 1837, he tried to get back into Parliament as Conser- 
vative member for Oxford ; but although he had published 
two pamphlets in defence of the Church of England as an 
Established Church in Ireland, he did not succeed. He, 
however, obtained a seat elsewhere. 

In 1850, Mr. Gladstone visited Naples, There, the hor- 
rors of the rule of King Ferdinand II., nicknamed " King 
Bomba," and the atrocities perpetrated in his prisons, struck 
him so forcibly that, on his return, he published two letters 
on the subject, written to Lord Aberdeen, which excited 
public feeling to the highest point both in England and 
America. The story that most moved men's hearts was 
that of Carlo Poerio. That gentleman's father had been a 
distinguished lawyer in Naples. He himself was a man of 
the highest personal character, and of many accomplish- 
ments. He was no revolutionist in the Mazzini sense, but a 
constitutionalist, a firm friend of the monarchy ; and when 
the King swore publicly to adhere to the Constitution, on 
January 7, 1848, Poerio became one of his ministers, appar- 
ently the most trusted and beloved. In July, 1849, the tide 
had turned. The King tore up the Constitution, and deter- 
mined to get rid of all those who, by ability, high character, 
and familiarity with public afifairs, might reproach him with 
his treachery. Poerio was one of the first arrested, on some 



MR. GLADSTONE. 397 

frivolous pretext and on the evidence of forged letters. 
With forty-two others, he was tried for an imaginary con- 
spiracy. That the principal witness was swearing falsely, 
Poerio again and again brought home to him, but with no 
result. He was condemned to twenty-four years' imprison- 
ment, and sent to the Island of Nisida. There eight hundred 
criminals were confined, who had never been in chains ; but 
orders came direct from the King thenceforward to chain 
all the prisoners. Sixteen of them, when Mr. Gladstone 
visited the prison, were confined in a room less than six- 
teen feet long, ten or twelve broad, and ten high, with a 
small yard. They were chained two and two, — informer 
with victim, criminal with gentleman. The chains were 
never removed, day or night, for one moment. 

" I do not expect my health can stand it long," said 
Poerio to Mr. Gladstone ; " but may God give me patience 
to endure ! " 

From Nisida, Poerio was removed to Ischia. There he 
was confined in an underground dungeon, and chained to 
the floor. His resource was in trying to remember Dante's 
Divina Commedia, a large part of which his memory had 
laid up in store. At Ischia, Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet left 
him ; and at Ischia, Ruffini's wonderful novel leaves Dr. 
Antonio. 

In 1859 — nine years after — Poerio was set at liberty, 
and embarked for America. He contrived, however, to 
change his destination, reached London, and thence returned 
to Italy. 

By his pen, and in his place in Parliament, Mr. Gladstone 
had done his utmost for the liberation of the victims of the 
King of Naples. 

In 1858, when Lord Derby was Prime Minister, and Sir 
Edward Bulwer Lytton was Secretary for the Colonies, 
they sent Mr. Gladstone to the Ionian Isles to look after 
the affairs of that dissatisfied little republic, placed by the 
Congress of Vienna under the protectorate of England. 
The islanders had no fault to find with the material advan- 
tages of that protectorate. Much English money was 



398 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

spent among them, they had good justice, and good 
roads ; but Greeks are Greeks, and they desired to be 
reunited to other Greeks, under a Greek king. Mr. Glad- 
stone, who was only sent out to investigate, was hailed as 
a liberator. His report as Lord High Commissioner was 
such that the Government decided to take the earliest 
opportunity of making England's rights in the islands a 
present to the Greek Crown. This opportunity occurred 
about five years later, when Prince George of Denmark, 
brother of the Princess of Wales, was called to the Greek 
throne. 

Under Lord Aberdeen, in 1852, Mr. Gladstone, after his 
return from his Ionian mission, was made Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, and he remained in office until the cabinet . 
of Lord Aberdeen dropped to pieces, under the stress and 
strain of the Crimean war. During that time we find the 
Mr. Gladstone of the first half of his parliamentary life 
opposed to the Mr. Gladstone of the second. He was in 
alliance with the Turks, and opposed to Russia. 

Mr. Gladstone's course in Parhament from 1855 to i860 
was somewhat erratic. His friends called it incomprehen- 
sible. " I cannot make out Gladstone," said one of them. 
He would — and he would not — join the ministries of 
Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston. He deprecated the 
continuance of the war with Russia, after having taken a 
leading part in the cabinet that brought it on. 

In i860, however, he had decided to be no longer a 
Conservative, but a member of the Whig party, and the 
declared opponent of Mr. Disraeli, who had just been 
defeated on the subject of a new Reform Bill. 

Two years before this, when Lord High Commissioner 
to the Ionian Isles, and treading the soil of Ithaca, in the 
very footsteps of Ulysses, Mr. Gladstone had re-devoted 
himself to the study of Homer, the beloved poet of his 
early youth. His contributions to Homeric literature must 
endear him to every one who has any enthusiasm for him 
who, Virgil told Dante when they met his shade, in the 
Inferno, had been "suckled at the Muses' breasts 3 " while 



MR. GLADSTONE. 399 

the poets who surrounded him cried out that he was 
" sovereign of them all." Nothing made Gladstone more 
angry than to hear any one advance Wolff's theory attack- 
ing the personality of Homer, unless it were to hear any 
one attack the personality of Shakespeare. 

"Few men," says one critic, "have known the Iliad better. 
He knows it not merely as a work of art, but as an anatomist 
knows the human body. He is familiar with every epithet, 
every metaphor, every turn of expression. He has brought to 
bear on it the keenest observation and the most patient experi- 
ments, and has delighted in announcing to the world his dis- 
coveries, with almost boyish enthusiasm." 

Mr. Gladstone's books on the Iliad, and his "Juven- 
tus Mundi" (The Youth of the World) are delightful. 
He has also made EngUsh ballads of some parts of 
the Iliad, as Dr. Maginn made of some parts of the 
Odyssey. 

It is the poetic temperament in Mr. Gladstone, stimu- 
lated by his loving intimacy with the greatest of poets, 
that gives him his power of sympathy with what is passing 
in the world. Anything that stirs the public heart stirs 
his ; whether it be a book like " Robert Elsmere," or some 
great event. His heart burns within him to tell us what he 
thinks of it, and what he thinks we ought to think. " Like 
one of his Homeric heroes, his soul takes fire when he hears 
the noise of shouting in the camp, and the clattering of 
spears and brazen armor." 

Mr. Gladstone made an excellent Chancellor of the 
Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's cabinet of 1859, and was 
considered the strongest financier in the country. His 
policy was that of Sir Robert Peel. To remove import 
duties he considered would be to give a stimulus to trade. 
In 1862, he believed in the coming success of the Confed- 
erate States, for which in England he has been greatly 
blamed by those who thought otherwise. As before the 
battle of Gettysburg, a very high official at Washington 
privately expressed the same opinion, — the same fear, — 



400 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

it does not do to be too hard on the prevision of an 
English statesman. 

In 1865, Mr. Gladstone first intermeddled in the great 
questions of Irish affairs. In 1866, things there had come 
to such a pass that the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, 
and Mr. Bright appealed to Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, 
as the trusted leaders of the two great parties, to suspend 
their quarrels and see what could be done for the pacifica- 
tion of Ireland. Mr. Bright, twenty years after, when a very 
old man, by no means approved of the aid he had invoked. 
This was after Mr. Gladstone became identified with Home 
Rule measures. 

In 1866, however, events, as well as Mr. Bright, seemed 
to call on Mr. Gladstone to "do something." After his 
rejection by the University of Oxford as its member, he 
declared himself "unmuzzled," — free to act, free to put 
his speculative theories into practice. 

It was about this time that Mr. Kinglake wrote of him : 

" If Mr. Gladstone was famous among us for the splendor of 
his eloquence, his unaffected piety, and for his blameless life, 
he was also celebrated far and wide for a more than common 
liveliness of conscience. He had once imagined it to be his 
duty to quit a Government, and to burst through strong ties of 
friendship and gratitude, by reason of a thin shade of difference 
on the subject of white or brown sugar. . . . His friends lived 
in dread of his virtues, as tending to make him whimsical and 
unstable; and the practical politicians, perceiving he was not 
to be depended on for party purposes, and was bent upon none 
but lofty objects, used to look upon him as danojerous, used 
to call him behind his back — a good man, in the worst sense 
of the term." 

At about the same date Sir Henry Taylor said of him : 
" I rather like Gladstone ; but he is said to have more of 
the devil in him than appears, — in a virtuous way, that is, 
— only self-willed." 

He was Prime Minister from 1868 to the early part of 
February, 1874, and Mr. Bright was in his cabinet. During 
those five years (whether for better or worse) a number of 
time-honored institutions were overthrown. 



MR. GLADSTONE. 4OI 

These years were distinguished by six measures, all sup- 
ported by the Government, some of which were iconoclastic 
in many people's eyes : — 

1. The Disestablishment of the Church of England in 
Ireland. 

2. A Tenant's Rights Bill in Ireland, by which Govern- 
ment authorities were to fix the rent, of any farm, concern- 
ing which they were applied to, for fifteen years ; and at 
the end of that time, if the tenant wished to give up his 
holding, the value of the improvements he had made were 
to be paid for by the landowner. 

3. Elementary national education was to be improved 
in England ; ratepayers were to be taxed to support the 
Government schools ; and Government inspectors were to 
visit all schools that accepted Government assistance. 

4. Officers in the army might no longer purchase their 
commissions. Before this time, if an officer desired to 
part with his commission, he might sell it to any qualified 
officer in the grade of rank beneath him. If he died in 
the service, his commission lapsed to the Government, but 
his widow and children were pensioned. 

5. An act abolishing religious tests in the Universities 
was passed in 1871. 

6. The ballot, guarded by many precautions to secure 
secrecy, was granted. 

The years from 1866 to 1S74 were prosperous. The har- 
vests were good, and the revenue was satisfactory ; but dis- 
contents in many quarters were occasioned by these changes, 
and in 1874 a crisis arrived. Then came a dissolution of 
Parliament, then a General Election, and then Mr. Glad- 
stone and the Liberal party sustained a total defeat. Mr. 
Disraeli, with his imperial policy, came into power, and 
remained Prime Minister of England until the year 
1880. 

And here, before we go on with Mr. Gladstone's political 
history, we will take a brief review of his private affairs. 
He had married the daughter and heiress of Sir Stephen 
Richard Glynne, Baronet, at whose death in this year, 1874, 

26 



402 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Hawarden Castle, in Wales, not far from Chester, came into 
possession of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. Hawarden is pro- 
nounced " Harden " by those connected with it. There are 
two castles at Hawarden, the old and the new. The " old " 
is now only an ivy-covered ruin ; it dates long before the 
Norman Conquest, and has many traditions. The Con- 
queror gave it to one of his followers, and it afterwards 
belonged to the stewards of the principality of Chester. 
In it the Welsh Princes Llwellyn and David performed 
some of their last acts of sovereignty. The Earls of Derby 
held it afterwards ; and after the battle of Worcester, as is 
told in " Peveril of the Peak," the Earl of that period was 
beheaded, and a lawyer, Serjeant Glynne, an ancestor of 
Mrs. Gladstone, received it from the Parliament. 

The "modern" castle is not a castle, but a beautiful 
house, with noble trees and home-like rooms, and books in 
every direction. The rector of Hawarden receives ;^4,ooo 
a year, and the position was given by Mr. Gladstone to 
the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, his son. Always, when at 
Hawarden, until his eyesight failed, Mr. Gladstone read 
to the congregation the Sunday lessons ; and this attracted 
to Hawarden Church many travelling strangers. The 
church is unpewed, — all the congregation sitting on 
uncushioned benches. 

In 1873 occurred a celebrated trial, about which, as we 
are treating of England at that period, I may be permitted 
to say a few words. The affair lasted one hundred and 
three days, and created more interest than reform bills, 
Irish land tenure, or improvements in education. It was 
curious in a social point of view, because of the anomalous, 
unreasonable class-interest taken in it by the English lower 
orders. 

The Tichbornes were an old and very distinguished 
Catholic family, living on the borders of the New Forest. 
One of the family, a young man who had conspired to 
assist the escape of Mary Queen of Scotts, had been put to 
death by Queen Elizabeth, and wrote some touching lines 
in the Tower the night before his execution : — 



MR. GLADSTONE. 403 

" My prime of life is but a frost of cares, 
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain, 
My crop of corn is but a field of tares. 

And all my good is but vain hope of gain. 
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun ; 
And now I live, and now my life is done." 

There was a custom of great antiquity connected with 
the family, and a family ghost haunted the Forest. In 
1854, the Baronet, Sir Edward, had no son. His heir was 
a Mr. James Tichborne, who had married a lady born and 
brought up in France. She was a flighty, eccentric woman, 
and the marriage was not a happy one. Their son, Roger, 
was a shy, whimsical, impulsive, 'vwak young man, who had 
been educated in a sort of haphazard way, — partly in 
France, and partly at the Jesuits' College at Stonyhurst. 
He was put into the army, and joined his regiment at Dub- 
lin, where his broken EngUsh and some queer ways exposed 
him to rough jesting in the mess-room ; but upon the whole 
he made an efficient officer, and was considered rather a 
good fellow. However, his home was so uncomfortable, 
owing to the quarrels of his parents, that he passed any 
spare time he had at Tichborne Hall. Sir Edward had 
changed his name, for some reason, to Doughty, and was 
anxious to marry his daughter, Miss Kate Doughty, to the 
young man, who would be eventually heir to his estates and 
title. The cousins were engaged, and were to be married 
in two years, during which interval young Roger was to 
travel. He reached Valparaiso in June, 1853, crossed the 
Andes, and visited Buenos Ayres. In February, 1854, he 
wrote several letters, dwelling affectionately on his hopes 
when he should return home, and soon after he went to 
Rio, where he embarked in the " Bella," a little sailing-vessel, 
for New York. The " Bella " was never more heard of; her 
boat was picked up bottom upwards ; and on the death of 
Sir Edward and of Roger's father, the baronetcy and estates 
went to an infant heir. 

But Roger's mother cherished a delusion that her son had 
been picked up at sea and carried to Australia. She got 



404 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

this story from a sailor who came begging to her door. 
She put advertisements for her lost son in all the Australian 
papers, and these in time produced an answer from a 
butcher, Arthur Orton, who had met Roger Tichborne in 
Valparaiso, and learned something of his history. This man 
claimed the title and estates of Tichborne as the real Sir 
Roger. He came to England, learned all he could through 
some old servants of the Tichborne family, interviewed 
Roger's mother in Paris, after showing some reluctance to 
do so, and was rapturously received by her as her son. 

On the trial he proved to know nothing of Stonyhurst, 
where he had been educated, or of the studies there. He 
could not speak French, but spoke Spanish, which Roger 
had never known ; knew nothing of cavalry drill (Roger had 
been a cavalry officer), but was well acquainted with infan- 
try tactics. On every point his case broke down ; and, after 
a second trial for perjury, he was sentenced to penal servi- 
tude. For years his believers were appealed to to support 
his wife, an Australian woman of indifferent character, and 
her children. They and their claims are now forgotten ; 
but for a long time the cruel treatment of a poor man by the 
proud aristocracy of England was a bitter cause of hatred 
against the great, among the lower classes. By what queer 
process of reasoning they made themselves out to be of the 
same class in life with Sir Roger Tichborne (if the Claimant 
was a baronet kept out of his rights), it is impossible to say. 

This episode of the Tichborne case has been long, and 
does not appear to have much connection with Mr. Glad- 
stone ; it occurred during his premiership, and absorbed 
public interest in England for more than a year. 

From 1874, when Mr. Gladstone's ministry went out of 
office, he assumed the position of the champion of Ireland ; 
and no knight errant ever threw himself with more passion- 
ate sympathy into a favorite cause. 

In a recent novel by Mr. N orris a character is intro- 
duced who undertakes to expound Home Rule in fifteen 
minutes. I can attempt no similar feat. Very briefly I 
will say that the first duty of an English Government is to 



MR. GLADSTONE. 405 

maintain the welfare and integrity of the British Empire. 
The demand for Home Parliaments (answering to the State 
Legislatures in this country) has been granted to distant 
colonies, and could very well be conceded to Ireland, were 
she a thousand miles from the English shores. But lying 
where she does, turbulent as her people are disposed to be, 
and, above all, after the proofs given in 1793, 1798, and 
1848 of the desire of her population to ally itself with 
France or any other country that may engage in war with 
England, the experiment might be hazardous in the ex- 
treme. But Mr. Gladstone willed Home Rule, and his life 
is now too far advanced to make it probable he will ever 
on this subject change his views. 

As regarded the disestablishment of the English Church 
in Ireland, many men of ardent piety and devoted High- 
Church Anglicans were content to have it so. They did 
not beheve that the cause of God or of the Church could 
be furthered by injustice, upheld by police and military 
force. 

The Church of England in Ireland had assumed all 
churches and parish buildings once belonging to the 
Roman Catholics, and it was supported by tithes. Dis- 
establishment meant, not that the tithes were to be turned 
over to the Roman Catholic Church, but that they were 
to be collected, and spent in endowing secular institutions 
for the benefit of the people. Once an enthusiastic advo- 
cate of the Irish Church as connected with the State, Mr. 
Gladstone believed in 18 71 that its supremacy could not 
be perpetuated without gross injustice. The Anglican 
rectors of parishes retain church buildings ; but in other 
respects the English Church is placed on the same vol- 
untary system as are the chapels of Roman Catholics or 
Protestant Dissenters. 

In 1880, Mr. Gladstone came back to power, after havdng 
triumphantly overthrown the brilliant imperial policy of 
Lord Beaconsfield. Foreign policy then became uppermost, 
as domestic policy had been in his former administration, 
and he succeeded to a heritage not at all to his mind. 



406 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

His idea of foreign policy had been, from the first, gen- 
erous forbearance in dealing with weak Powers ; and, 
holding this view, he had in the early part of his parlia- 
mentary career vehemently attacked Lord Palmerston. To 
Italian liberty he had given a first popular impulse by his 
attacks on the Neapolitan Government and its cruelties. 
When Russia was humbled by the Crimean war he pleaded 
that she ought to be granted generous terms of peace ; 
he assisted to strengthen Greece by the acquisition of 
Thessaly and the gift of the Ionian Isles \ he soothed Italy 
when indignant at the cession to France of Nice and 
Savoy ; he preserved Bulgaria and Montenegro as autono- 
mous States, when Lord Beaconsfield might have sacrificed 
them both ; above all, he refused to pursue the policy of 
allowing England to attempt annexation in India beyond 
her frontier of the Indus, — and then suddenly he suc- 
ceeded to his rival's place, and had to make the best he 
could of a foreign policy based on ideas very different from 
his own. 

He soon found himself waging a bloody war with the 
Arabs, not one foot of whose deserts he cared to obtain. 
Instead of promoting the arts of peace and industry, very 
dear to him as a man of the middle classes, the surplus 
revenue of which he had been so proud in the days of his 
former administration had to be spent in useless wars. 
Had Lord Palmerston been alive to rule things with a high 
hand, Arabi Pasha might never have made his rebellion, 
nor Russia have encroached quietly until almost within 
reach of the gates of Herat. Mr. Gladstone might indeed 
have erred in applying the principles of international policy, 
suitable to civilized nations, to countries that had never 
learned the first lessons of self restraint ; but he had to take 
up England's foreign poHcy as he found it. He induced 
General Gordon to go to the Soudan ; then he resolved to 
abandon it, after relieving the garrison of nineteen thousand 
men in three fortified cities. But no representations could 
make him give ear to the cries for haste which reached him 
from Egypt. He hated to spend English money on mili- 



MR. GLADSTONE. 40/ 

tary measures in that country ; he would not believe that 
Gordon was in peril. 

As dangers thickened round Gordon in Khartoum, and 
his latest despatches were being discussed at the Reform 
Club in May, 1884, a friend said to Mr. W. E. Forster, 
then Irish Secretary, that he could not understand how 
Mr. Gladstone could reconcile the repeated assurances of 
Gordon's safety, which he was giving to the House of 
Commons, with the General's own words, which he must 
have had in his possession at the time that he offered the 
assurances. "Ah!" said Forster, " you must not mistake 
Gladstone. He is perfectly honest and sincere, — per- 
fectly. But he has that wonderful power of convincing 
himself that certain things are different from what they 
seem to everybody else. He beheves Gordon to be quite 
safe, and he really believes it ; but he is the only man 
in England who could persuade himself of it, in the face 
of facts." 

In 1885 Mr. Gladstone introduced a bill for giving Home 
Rule to Ireland ; but the House of Commons, exasperated 
by the dynamite outrages that had alarmed all London, 
would not support him. He dissolved Parliament, and 
appealed to the country. The new Parliament was re- 
turned with an immense majority against him, and Lord 
Salisbury and a Tory Government reigned in his stead. 

The Irish policy of Lord Salisbury and his party was dia- 
metrically opposed to Mr. Gladstone's. Their idea has 
been to endeavor to pacify the refractory nation, not by 
concession of political privileges, but by promoting in all 
ways its material prosperity. 

Meantime in his retirement, Mr. Gladstone, although 
eighty, retained his energy, his enthusiasm, his sympathy in 
every topic of the day. It would seem as if he said, with 
Arnauld of the Port Royalists, " Have we not all eternity 
to rest in?" or that he was spurred on by the thought that 
" the night cometh, when no man can work." 

One of his last political acts of "right-about-face" was, 
during his retirement, to write, while travelling in Italy, a 



408 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

letter to some Italian statesman, which was interpreted to 
mean that he took the Pope's part against the King of Italy, 
— he, who in 1852 had published scathing pamphlets against 
what were called the Vatican Decrees, which raised an 
absurd howl in England over the appointment by the Pope 
of bishops having English titles in England. 

These pages are a Hnk between history and politics. 
They close with the Queen's Jubilee in 1887, beyond which 
they do not follow Mr. Gladstone's career. Times change, 
and men and women as they grow older and gain expe- 
rience may well suffer their opinions to grow too. But 
certainly Mr. Gladstone's changes of opinion in the course 
of sixty-iive years have been extraordinary. 

He entered Parliament a Conservative ; he is now a 
leader of advanced Liberal opinions. 

> He began by defending the English Church as a State 
Church in Ireland ; he disestablished it. 

He began by opposing an increased grant to Maynooth ; 
he has ended by establishing Irish Universities. 

He is a sincerely religious man and a High Churchman ; 
but he is said to contemplate the disruption of Church and 
State in Wales and England. 

He attacked the Pope formerly with great bitterness ; he 
would not object, apparently, to restore his temporal power. 

I might carry this on further, but I prefer to quote Mr. 
Gladstone's own words from an early article on the Spanish 
priest, Blanco White, as applicable to himself in this con- 
nection : — 

"We cannot with impunity tamper with the fearful and won- 
derful composition of our spiritual being. Sincerity of intention 
after this can only exist in a qualified and imperfect sense. It 
may be in a manner sincere, so far as depends on the contem- 
poraneous action of the will, but it is clogged and hampered by 
the encumbering remains of a former sincerity." 

His home, as I said, is at Hawarden, not very far from 
Liverpool, where his father's commercial house was so 
prosperous three-quarters of a century ago. 



MR. GLADSTONE. 409 

The park of Hawarden is beautiful ; the house is all for 
comfort, not for show. Books are everywhere, and por- 
traits, most of them by some great master. Mr. Glad- 
stone's own portrait is by Millais j Sir Kenelm Digby is by 
Vandyke. The master of all works in a study leading from 
his library, having around him all the litter literary workers 
love. Only, he has tables set apart for different occupations. 
There is an Irish table and a Homer table, — "where," said 
Mr. Gladstone lately to a visitor, with a sigh, " I rarely 
work now." There, too, is Mrs. Gladstone's own table, de- 
voted largely to the affairs of the orphanage she has built 
at her park gates. Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare have 
their separate compartments in the library, and the busts 
that preside there are of Cobden, Sidney Herbert, the 
Duke of Newcastle, Canning, and Homer. 

For many years Mr. Gladstone permitted every villager 
to borrow books, from his own shelves ; but he has recently 
(1894) presented to the village of Hawarden an excellent 
permanent library. So long as he lent his villagers his 
own books, he required that the name of each book and 
its borrower should be entered in a volume kept for the 
purpose. 

" The Grand Old Man " is the name by which he is 
affectionally known to his own party. He was long the 
idol of the working-class in England, who would have 
blindly followed him in anything but his patronage of 
Irishmen. All his life he has been a man with tremen- 
dous powers of work, and his physical energy keeps pace 
with the intellectual. A reviewer says : — 

" To fell a stout and ancient tree of miijhty girth ; to walk 
with ease and pleasure a dozen miles ; to translate from English 
into elegant Latin, or from Latin and Greek into elegnnt Eng- 
lish ; to address a concourse of some thousands of hearers, or 
to deliver an oration from the chair of a university ; to deal suc- 
cessfully with the complicated embarrassments of a tariff, or the 
perplexities of a Chancellor of the Exchequer; to write essays 
as an accomplished journalist ; or firmly to prasp the rudder of 
the vessel of State, — all these exhibit a variety of power surely 



41 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

not less than astonishing to ordinary mortals. To all which it 
must be added that he is not a remote and silent landlord; he 
is at home and talkative with the tenants and the villagers 
takes an interest in the Literary or Young Men's Society of his 
little village, and is a frequent caller at many of the cottages." 

It has been said that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone attribute 
much of Mr. Gladstone's health to the fact that he will 
have his Sunday to himself and to his family, undisturbed 
by any of the agitations of business, the cares of State, or 
even the recreations of literature ©r of scholastic study. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

QUEEN victoria's JUBILEE AND HER FAMILY. 

"T^ROM 1880 to 1887 it was the foreign policy of Eng- 
-*- land that secured .general interest; domestic affairs 
took a second place, except when the nation grew angry 
at the ill-success of far-off military expeditions, or at the 
supineness of those in power, who ought to have listened to 
the general voice, and forestalled irreparable misfortunes. 
Then the offending ministry was turned out, and another 
placed in office to make the best it could of the confused 
foreign policy left by its predecessor. But these events in 
English history are all connected with Africa. The rebel- 
lion of Arabi Pasha ; the bombardment of Alexandria ; the 
occupation of Egypt ; the campaigns in Nubia and the 
Soudan ; the fall of Khartoum, and the death of General 
Gordon ; the Ashantee war ; the Abyssinian war ; and the 
war with Cetewayo, and that with the Boers, — all occurred 
during this period, and may be treated of elsewhere. 

Our English word "jubilee " comes from a Hebrew word 
which signifies a ram, because its commencement, once in 
fifty years, was proclaimed to the people by the sound of 
trumpets made of ram's horns. Queen Victoria is the only 
English sovereign since the Conquest who can be said to 
have reigned fifty years on her Jubilee day. Henry HI. 
was crowned on the death of his father in 12 16, in the 
Abbey at Gloucester, — the only English sovereign crowned 
elsewhere than at Westminster since Edward the Confessor's 
day. The Abbey at Westminster was in possession of the 
Dauphin of France on Henry's accession, and the Earl of 
Pembroke governed as Regent during his minority, which 
lasted till 1222. He was re-crowned at Westminster in 
great state by the Archbishop, Stephen Langton ; and when 



412 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

he died, in 1272, his actual reign had lasted fifty years. 
Edward III. ascended the throne on the deposition of his 
father in 1327, but it was not until 1330 that he assumed 
the reins of government. He died in 1377, having reigned 
actually forty-seven years, though nominally fifty. Poor 
George III. came to the throne a young man in 1760, 
but in 1 8 10, a few weeks after his Jubilee, he became 
hopelessly insane, and from November, 1789, to February, 
1790, England had been governed by Mr. Pitt, pending 
a Regency Bill, which was thrown aside as the King 
recovered. 

Though the reason of George III. was tottering when his 
Jubilee year came round, it was the wish of the nation and 
his family that the day should be one of great public rejoic- 
ing. It is true that the affairs of the country were then most 
gloomy. Trade was depressed, men's patience and their 
purses were exhausted by the long struggle with Napoleon ; 
the expedition to Walcheren, too, had just failed, to the 
great disappointment of the British public. Nevertheless, 
all England determined to keep holiday, and to celebrate 
the occasion, in true British fashion, with roast beef, plum- 
pudding, and beer. These national adjuncts to thanksgiving 
were even ordered by the Governor of St. Bartholomew's 
Hospital for all his patients. In every town or village an ox 
was roasted whole. His Majesty's navy had rum enough 
served out to float a man-of-war. At Dunstable, one thou- 
sand magnates feasted at one table. All poor debtors who 
owed money to the Crown were released, and large subscrip- 
tions were raised to free others, the King giving no less than 
;^4,ooo. Prisoners of war (provided they were not French) 
were sent home ; all deserters from fleet and army were 
granted a free pardon ; those confined for military offences 
were set at liberty ; and officers of both army and navy were 
promoted. In London, joy-bells woke the citizens at dawn. 
Everybody was early afoot, each dressed in his best for the 
occasion ; flags and ribbons decorated the houses. Nearly 
every one wore a blue ribbon, with a medal suspended from 
it, which had been struck for the occasion. The Lord Mayor 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 413 

and Corporation, in a blaze of civic splendor, went to divine 
service at St. Paul's. All the churches were open for a ser- 
vice of thanksgiving ; after service came a grand review in 
Hyde Park ; then the roast beef, the plum-pudding, and the 
beer ; and, last, a general illumination. In Ireland the 
rejoicings were kept up for three days, with such good 
humor that it is recorded that all the time the revels lasted 
there was not one magistrate's charge in Dublin. 

But the sad part of the affair, though it does not seem to 
have damped the general enjoyment at the time, was, that 
not a member of the royal family spent the day in London. 
The state of the poor King's health was so uncertain that 
his Queen and his physicians dared not expose him to the 
excitement of the occasion. At Windsor the people had 
the roast ox, the grog, the porter, and the pudding ; and the 
Queen, with her three sons, came to see the roast, and honor 
it by tasting of the delicacy. They had a thanksgiving 
service in St. George's Chapel, at which the King was 
present ; and in the evening the Queen gave a grand recep- 
tion at Frogmore, not only to members of the court circle, 
but to honest tradesmen of Windsor and their wives. Brave, 
sad, and oft-maligned poor Queen ! How her heart must 
have ached for the husband she sincerely loved, left behind 
in his own rooms at Windsor, while she did the honors, with 
what gayety she might, of this unusual style of royal festivity. 
These things took place on October 25, 18 10. All but 
seventy-seven years after, on June 21, 1887, occurred an- 
other Jubilee, — that of the granddaughter of the "good 
old King," as his subjects loved to call him. He might not 
have been "good " as a king, but he was exemplary as a man, 
and most unhappy. The reign of Queen Victoria has been 
in all respects "happy and glorious," save for the sad be- 
reavement which on December 14, 1861, darkened her life; 
but even as to bereavements, Death has snatched fewer vic- 
tims from her large family circle than he usually does from 
persons of her age. 

After the Prince Consort's death the Queen secluded her- 
self for many years from court ceremonials, thereby greatly 



414 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

disappointing her subjects ; she has worn black all the days 
of her widowhood, unless on exceptional public occasions. 
During these years her companionship and intimacy has 
been with her own family, or, for a brief period, with Lord 
Beaconsfield. Her health, considered frail in her girlhood, 
has, on the whole, been excellent. When, on the day of her 
Jubilee, she drove in state to Westminster Abbey, she was 
attended by a gallant cortege of sons and sons-in-law. The 
papers at that time published sheets containing portraits of 
all her descendants, — her children, her grandchildren, and 
two great-grandchildren, her sons-in-law and daughters-in- 
law. Among all these there is not one who has openly dis- 
honored his or her high lineage. There have been among 
them many sorrows, but some have been distinguished among 
the good and great of their generation for noble womanly 
and manly qualities. All the women, whether connected 
with the Queen by birth or marriage, have been ladies of 
exceptional ability and virtue. 

The day of the Jubilee, Tuesday, June 21, 1887, was very 
warm. The sun shone with a fierce brightness he seldom 
does in England. The chief desire of those who planned 
the ceremonies was to make them, like those of the Corona- 
tion, a source of interest and rejoicing to the people, — who 
were to witness the splendors of a procession formed largely 
of princes and high dignitaries, while a solemn religious 
service took place in the Abbey. 

' Seats and windows sold at prices higher than those upon 
the Coronation Day, all along the line of the procession 
from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. The 
crowd was dense, but pleased, and in good humor. 

Under a red and fawn-color striped awning all, except 
royal personages, who had tickets for the religious services 
had to pass to enter the Abbey. Along this covered way 
streamed by eight o'clock a. m. ladies in superb toilets, 
gentlemen in cocked hats and black velvet court costumes, 
generals and general officers in brilliant scarlet, naval men 
in uniforms of blue and white and gold. 

Among the earliest of the royal family, to arrive were three 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 415 

young girls, daughters of the Duke of Edinburgh, their pretty 
fair hair floating down their backs, with flapping hats of 
Tuscan straw shading them from the sun. Princess Frederica 
of Hanover, wife of the Freiherr von Pawel-Rammingen, who 
had been for many years her blind father's secretary, was 
there, dressed all in white, looking pale, but very princely. 
The Duchess of Teck (Princess Mary of Cambridge), always 
a favorite with the people, and her daughter, Princess May, 
were loudly cheered. Then came the crowned heads who 
were not to follow the Queen in the procession, the royal- 
ties of Greece and Denmark, and the King and Queen 
of the Belgians. There were Indian Princes all wrapped 
round with shawls and stuffs of rich dark colors, stolid and 
stately, indifferent alike to plaudits and to the rays of a 
burning sun which made their jewels flash and sparkle. 
Queen Emma of Hawaii was among the crowned heads, and 
Princess Lililokalani, — since dethroned, who will never 
have a Jubilee. There was an Indian Mahranee, distin- 
guished by her Eastern grace and quiet dignity ; and a 
Prince of Japan, looking pleased and amused, in a queer 
white helmet-like cap, adorned with feathers and magenta 
ribbons. 

It was half an hour after midday when the Queen's pro- 
cession reached the Abbey. In the state carriage with the 
Queen sat the Princess of Wales and the Crown- Princess of 
Prussia. 

In carriages that followed were other Princesses : the 
three daughters of the Prince of Wales, their carriage look- 
ing like a bower of tulle and whiteness ; Princess Irene, the 
daughter of Princess Alice, was there, and their aunts, — the 
Princess Christian, Princess Louise, Princess Beatrice, and 
the Duchess of Edinburgh. 

The Queen, in place of the black bonnet which for 
twenty-six years had saddened the eyes of her people, wore 
a coronet-shaped bonnet of white lace, bedecked with dia- 
monds, which made her look ten years younger. It was 
remarked that she seemed pleased, and was smiling. Pleased 
and interested, too, seemed the Crown-Princess of Prussia, 



41 6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

— little forecasting that within a year she would be both an 
Empress and a widow, though her husband had taken ad- 
vantage of his journey to England to consult Dr. Mackenzie 
as to his throat, which was already becoming a cause of 
anxiety. The Crown- Princess wore a superb gray silk, and 
a white bonnet, with strings of olive green. The Duchess 
of Albany was there, still in slight mourning. She was 
always a favorite, and was loudly cheered. 

The most interesting part of the procession was the escort 
that immediately followed the Queen's carriage, — her three 
sons riding abreast, and her five sons-in-law ; conspicuous 
among these last was the splendid figure of the Crown- 
Prince of Prussia. The only contretemps during the day 
was that the horse of the Marquis of Lome threw him, just 
as the procession was about to start. 

The services in the Abbey were solemn and beautiful. 
There is a service in the English Prayer-book for the anni- 
versary of the succession of a sovereign. The archbishops 
officiated, and many bishops and high ecclesiastical digni- 
taries assisted in the chancel. Judges in their wigs and 
robes were there ; groups of Indians, in gorgeous costumes 
and jewels, came to do honor to the Empress of India; 
sheriffs from the fifty-two counties of England and Wales, 
and mayors from the principal cities. 

The next day, Wednesday, June 22, a great feast was 
given to all the charit)'-school children of London in 
Hyde . Park, which the Queen apd all the royal person- 
ages attended ; and in the evening of that day all 
London was illuminated. " I think," says a writer in 
the " Monthly Packet," " that for once the English were 
not taking their pleasure sadly, but were delighted, inter- 
ested, and amused with wondrous little. Dense as were 
the crowds, good humor and a certain order prevailed 
everywhere." 

The Queen has had nine children, of whom, in 1894, 
seven are still living, — Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa, 
Princess Royal, now the widowed Empress Frederick, 
born in 1 840 ; Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, born in 




PRINCESS ROYAL. 

{Afterwards Empress of Geriuany.) 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 417 

1841 ; Alice Maud Mary, Grand-Duchess of Hesse-Darm- 
stadt, born in 1843; Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edin- 
burgh and Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, born in 1844; 
Helena Augusta, Princess Christian, born in 1846; Louise 
Caroline Alberta, Marchioness of Lome, born in 1848 ; 
Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught, born 
in 1850; Leopold George Duncan Albert, Duke of Albany, 
born in 1853; Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodora, married 
Prince Henry of Battenberg, born in 1857. 

Very briefly I propose to tell the history of these Princes 
and Princesses. We begin with Victoria, the Princess-Royal, 
born shortly after her parents were twenty-one, and prob- 
ably the most highly intellectual member of her family. 

She was born November 21, 1840. "A plump, healthy, 
beautiful princess," says the Court Chronicle, who 
began her life by protesting vehemently against being 
inspected by the Lords of the Council and other dignita- 
ries, who, according to court etiquette, were stationed for 
that purpose in the next chamber. 

She was a very pretty young girl at the time of her 
marriage, and was always her father's especial delight. 
Baron Stockmar was also very fond and proud of her. 
Before she was four years old she spoke French as well 
as she could speak English, and her mother records in her 
Journal several remarkable instances of her early under- 
standing and self-control. 

On Mrs. Bancroft's first visit to Windsor, as wife of the 
American Ambassador, when she went to take leave of the 
Queen, who was in the picture-gallery, Her Majesty said, 
" Oh, but you have not seen the children ! I will go and 
bring them," She soon returned, carrying the baby, Alice, 
and followed by the Princess-Royal and the Prince of 
Wales, the latter shrinking behind his sister. " It is 
always so," said the Queen. "They are devoted to each 
other. She is afraid of nothing. He is shy, and always 
wants her to speak for him." 

The Princess-Royal was her father's constant companion, 
and that of her mother as much as possible. When she 

27 



41 8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was three or four years old, the Queen laments in heir 
Journal that her unavoidable occupations and engage- 
ments prevented her from nightly hearing her children 
say their prayers. 

The Princess was an excellent artist, making illustrations 
for the books she loved, especially for the " Idyls of the 
King," which greatly pleased her father. 

As the children grew older, the Queen purchased Osborne 
House, in the Isle of Wight, as a seaside residence, and 
rejoiced over her new acquisition, " as it will give us," she 
says to her uncle, " a home of our own. 

The children had their little gardens at Osborne, and 
a charming Swiss cottage, where they played at house- 
keeping; cooked, dusted, swept, and, once in a while, 
guests staying with their parents were invited to luncheon, 
which the children cooked and served with their own 
hands. 

Princess Alice, in after years, writes to her mother : 
" We always say to each other that no children were ever 
made so happy with the comforts and enjoyments that 
children would wish for, as we were." 

Then, too, by the time the Princess-Royal was ten years 
old they acquired the beloved Highland residence of 
Balmoral. The Queen's account of their family life in 
the Highlands is full of anecdotes of "Vicky," the ex- 
tremely uncouth name by which the Princess-Royal was 
known in her family circle. 

When the Queen visited Ireland, in 1849, she took with 
her her four children. The party landed in the Cove of 
Cork, at a spot thence called Queenstown. The Princess- 
Royal and Princess Alice afterwards went with their parents 
to Edinburgh. The Queen records that on reaching Holy- 
rood she went out with her two girls, without rest, to explore 
the ruined Abbey. The Scottish scenes awakened the 
enthusiasm of the elder Princess, the daily companion of 
her father, who had been, as it were, brought up by his 
grandmothers on Walter Scott's writings, one of them 
having been in the habit of telling the stories of the 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 419 

Waverley Novels before bed-time to the two eager little 
grandsons at her knee. 

Prince Albert took great pains to instruct his clever little 
daughter in the course of public events, and to give her 
ideas of politics and political economy. On one occasion 
he made her translate a profound German pamphlet, on the 
future policy of Germany, which he wanted to show to the 
Prime Minister. 

During the Crimean war the Queen and her daughters 
took an intense interest in the work of Miss Nightingale ; 
and when, after the war, that lady came on a visit to Bal- 
moral, the young Princesses hung upon her words, learning 
lessons they were so nobly to put in practice in the wars of 
1866 and 1870. 

It was immediately after the Crimean war that Prince 
Frederick William, son of the Crown- Prince of Prussia, then 
heir-presumptive to the Prussian throne, came to Balmoral, 
and there, with a sprig of white heather, the emblem of 
good fortune, wooed the Princess-Royal in true lover 
fashion on a Scottish hillside ; but she was so young that 
her parents endeavored to insist that two years must pass 
before the marriage. It took place, however, January 25, 
1858, in London. I cannot but think that a few extracts 
from the Queen's own Diary will have more interest than 
any mere abridgment into another's words. 

" The wedding-presents," she writes, " were all set out in the 
great drawing-room [of Buckingham Palace] the evening before, 
— Mamma's and ours on one table, Fritz's and his family's, and 
Uncle Leopold's and others, on another. Fritz's pearls were the 
largest I have ever seen, — one row. We brought in Fritz and 
Vicky. She was in ecstasies, — quite startled ; Fritz delighted." 

Again : — 

" Dear Vicky gave me a brooch, a very pretty one, before 
church, with her hair; and, clasping me in her arms, said, 'I 
hope to be worthy to be your child.' " 

On the wedding-day the Queen writes also : — 



420 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" While I was dressing, Vicky came to me, looking well and 
composed, and in a fine, quiet frame of mind. Then came the 
time to go ; the sun was shining brightly. Thousands had been 
out since early dawn, shouting, bells ringing, etc. The two eldest 
boys went first, then the three girls in pink satin, trimmed with 
Newport lace ; Alice with a wreath, and the two others with 
bouquets only. . . . Our darling flower looked very touching 
and lovely, with such an innocent, confiding, serious expression, 
her veil hanging over her shoulders, walking between her be- 
loved father and dearest Uncle Leopold." 

While Princess Alice wore roses and white heather, the 
Princesses Louise and Helena wore cornflowers, in memory 
of the bridegroom's grandmother, Queen Louise of Prussia. 
It was her favorite flower, and ever since has been cherished 
by her descendants. 

The Queen continues : — 

" It was beautiful to see our darling kneeling with Fritz, their 
hands joined, her eight bridesmaids in white tulle, with roses 
and white heather, looking like a cloud hovering over her." 

But very sorrowful was the parting on the snowy Feb- 
ruary day when the Princess departed to her new people 
and her new home. 

Then Germany was proud to receive an English bride ; 
then all was hope, and welcome, and enthusiasm ; then 
Germany was not puffed up with national pride. Bis- 
marck, indeed, had objected to the alliance, and some of 
the old court party were ready to cavil at the free and 
easy ways of a Princess bred in a court where all was home- 
like, affectionate, and natural ; but the population of Berlin 
went wild with welcome, and it required persistent efforts of 
foes in her own household, backed by the powerful Chan- 
cellor, to make the sweet young bride " unpopular." Her 
father had said of her, " She has the heart of a child, with 
a man's head ; " and, " Unquestionably she will turn out a 
very superior woman, whom Prussia will have cause to bless. 
I write to her every Wednesday by the courier, and receive 
her answer by the same messenger on the Monday follow- 
ing. We discourse in this manner upon general topics, 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 42 1 

while she writes to her mother daily, giving her the details 
of her every-day life." 

A few weeks after her marriage her wise father warned 
her not to be disappointed if her people, having been rap- 
turous at first, should become critical. I remember hearing 
it said at the time that when the German court ladies 
found her trousseau included a dozen pairs of stout walk- 
ing-shoes, they sneered at a Princess who had so carefully 
provided for keeping up her Enghsh ways. There had 
never been a Queen of Prussia who was not a German ; 
and the Prussian court people considered English man- 
ners foreign, and good sense an invasion of time-honored 
etiquette. 

However, these things were but the little cloud at first, 
" like a man's hand." Prince Albert, writing confidentially 
to Stockmar, tells him that a visit which he paid to the 
young people not long after their marriage had afforded 
him complete satisfaction. " The harmony between the 
young couple," he says, " is perfect ; " and in a hundred 
ways we find this judgment confirmed. 

At the time of the marriage, the father of Prince Fritz 
(the future Emperor William) was Regent of Prussia, his 
brother. King Frederick William, having become imbecile. 

The Princess had a long and dangerous period of suffer- 
ing before the birth of her first child. A lady, resident in 
Berlin at the time, states that she saw the father of Prince 
Fritz spring into a cab in the twilight, and drive furiously to 
his son's residence, where he remained until, after some 
hours of suspense, Marshal von Wrangel came out upon 
the balcony, and announced to the crowd waiting for tid- 
ings : " All is well, my children ! 'T is as sturdy a little 
recruit as heart could wish to see." The " sturdy little 
recruit " was a delicate child, nevertheless, born with his 
left hand and arm imperfect. From his earliest months, 
however, he was taught to manage this defect, and he has 
so far overcome it as to be a skilful swordsman and rider. 
There is something pathetic in the entries in the Queen's 
Journal concerning this child, when we remember that he 



422 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

lived (at. least at one period of his life) to flout his grand- 
mother, and to weigh down his mother's heart in her widow- 
hood with sorrow that seems greater than any mother or 
widow in common life is called to bear. 

"Such a little love!" writes his grandmother. "He came 
walking in at his nurse's hand, in a little white dress, with 
black bows ; and so good. . . . He is a fine, fat child, with a 
beautiful white, soft skin, very fine shoulders and limbs, and a 
very dear face. ... So intelligent, and pretty, and good, and 
affectionate, — such a darling ! " 

As the year 1861 opened, the old King of Prussia died, 
and the future Emperor of Germany became King in his 
stead. Prince Fritz and his wife then became Crown- 
Prince and Crown- Princess of Prussia. At this time all 
testimonies agree with that of Lord Clarendon, who writes 
to Prince Albert that he is not astonished, but very much 
pleased, to find how thoroughly appreciated and very much 
beloved is Her Royal Highness; and adds that he has 
been more than ever astonished at the statesmanlike and 
comprehensive views she takes of Prussia's affairs, both 
internal and foreign, and of the duties of a constitutional 
king. 

Unhappily, these duties were differently understood by 
the Crown Prince and Princess on the one part, and by 
the King and Count Bismarck on the other, whose idea 
was that a king should be as little constitutional as was 
consistent with retaining popularity. 

Before Christmas of that sad year. Prince Albert died. 
The Crown- Princess hastened to her mother in her great 
sorrow. Her visit was the drop of comfort in the bitter 
cup the Queen was drinking in those days. 

Both the Crown-Prince and his wife were fond of travel- 
ling. Besides visiting all parts of their own country, they 
were frequently in Switzerland and Italy, travelling incog- 
nito, and associating on pleasant terms with such interesting 
people as they met. 

The Crown Prince and Princess had eight children, — 




CROWN- PRINCE FREDERICK. 

{^Afterwards Emperor of Gerntatiy.) 



, QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 423 

William, the Emperor William II. of Germany ; Charlotte, 
who married the Prince of Saxe-Meiningen ; Henry, who 
married his cousin, Princess Irene of Hesse- Darmstadt ; 
Sigismund, who died before he was two years old ; Victoria, 
who married His Serene Highness Prince Adolphe of 
Schaumburg-Lippe ; Waldemar, who died at eleven years 
of age ; Sophia Dorothea, who married the Prince of Sparta ; 
Margaret, who married Prince Frederick of Hesse-Cassel. 

It was just as the Seven Weeks' War of 1866 was break- 
ing out that the Crown- Prince's little son Sigismund died 
of diphtheria. At the battle of Sadowa, or Koniggratz, the 
success of the Prussians was largely due to the generalship 
of the Crown-Prince ; and that the war came so speedily to 
a close was owing in a measure to his statesmanship. " But 
ah ! " he cries, in his Diary, " victories cannot compensate 
me for the loss of a son ! " 

In the Franco- Prussian war of 1870, the Crown- Prince 
commanded the Third Army Corps, composed largely of 
South German troops, whose hearts he won. Even the 
French felt kindly to him, — the one German in the Prus- 
sian army who inspired that feeling ; yet we learn now that 
it was he who insisted firmly on the unity of Germany, 
and the necessity that Prussia should secure the imperial 
crown. 

As I said, the Emperor W^illiam I. aimed to be as little 
a constitutional sovereign as possible, and transmitted that 
notion to his grandson ; while Prince Frederick hoped to 
educate the people up to aiding the sovereign to govern 
constitutionally. All through his father's long reign, he felt 
it his duty to repress or to efface himself, and to keep back 
the public expression of his opinions, though never to deny 
or abandon them. 

During the war with France, both the Crown- Princess 
and her sister Alice, animated by their remembrance of 
Miss Nightingale's labors, devoted themselves to hospital 
work, while the Empress Augusta took on herself the 
charge of providing for refugees from France and comforts 
for the soldiers. 



424 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

When the war was over, the particular form of charity to 
which the Crown- Prince and his wife devoted themselves was 
Kindergarten work, orphan asylums, and industrial schools. 

In 1 88 1 Prince William, now Emperor, married Princess 
Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, daughter of that 
Duke of Augustenburg who was cavalierly disinherited by 
Count Bismarck in 1865. They have now (in 1894) six 
sons and a daughter. Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meinin- 
gen made Queen Victoria a great-grandmother when she 
was fifty-nine. 

The particulars of the Crown-Prince's illness have been 
very fully published, and are generally known. We have 
seen that in June, 1887, at the Queen's Jubilee, he was the 
handsomest and most stalwart of her sons and sons-in-law 
who rode in the procession to Westminster, — the one who 
excited from the crowd the most overwhelming enthusiasm. 
After the Jubilee he and his wife went, in July, to San 
. Remo, in the Riviera. There Dr. Mackenzie was sum- 
moned early in November, and told the Prince that cancer 
in his throat was now to be feared, though it was not cer- 
tain. "After a moment of silence," says Dr. Mackenzie, 
" he grasped my hand, and said, with his smile of peculiar 
sweetness, ' I have been lately fearing something of the 
sort ; I thank you for being so frank with me.' He showed 
not the shghtest sign of depression, but spent the day in 
his usual occupations, and at dinner-time that evening he 
was cheerful, without apparent effort, and chatted freely in 
his usual manner." 

A day or two afterwards, in reply to a question about his 
general health, he said that he had never felt bettet in his 
life, adding, " I feel that under the circumstances I ought 
to apologize for feeling so well." 

Now better, now worse, the illness dragged on at San 
Remo, the doctors squabbling and disagreeing all the time ; 
the old Emperor at Berlin worrying about the future ; and 
the young William and Bismarck arguing privately that the 
Crown-Prince never would be fit to become Emperor of 
Germany, and that the Constitution of the Empire had pro- 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 425 

vided that in such a case power should pass into the hands 
of the next heir. 

There came at last a day in February when an operation 
on the patient's throat had to be performed. The wife 
implored that she might not be forced to leave her husband, 
who might possibly die under the knife ; but she was not 
allowed to be in the room. 

The Prince's last words before the chloroform adminis- 
tered took effect were to comfort and reassure one of his 
attendants who was greatly overcome. At Berlin the old 
Emperor was cruelly agitated by news of this operation and 
its necessity. Young William did not go to bed all night, 
but walked about his chamber. 

A month later, March 9, 1888, the old Emperor died. 
The new Emperor was greatly agitated on receiving the 
intelligence ; but Prince Bismarck insisted on his return at 
once to his own dominions, and he did not feel it politic to 
make any opposition. The weather was cold ; the journey 
began in a drizzle. 

At Leipzic, Prince Bismarck met him, and seemed disposed 
to be courteous and sympathetic to the new sovereign, and 
concihatory to Dr. Mackenzie. Berlin was two feet deep 
in snow when the imperial party reached Charlottenburg. 

From that day, March 12, to the day of his death, June 
15, the Emperor Frederick endeavored to work, and with 
all his might to fulfil his duty. He had looked forward so 
long to being Emperor. He had formed such schemes of 
what he would do for his people ; of his establishing the 
Empire on the basis of the love, the consent, and the im- 
proved education of his subjects ; he had differed so much 
from his father, and had so steadily effaced himself and 
repressed his own views, that it seemed hard that he was 
only to grasp the sceptre with a dying hand. It was a con- 
solation to him to record his views, which he never would 
have the opportunity to carry out, and which it had been 
his duty during his father's lifetime to make no effort to 
have understood. There can be no doubt that, with the 
consent of his wife, he intrusted his Diary, or a summary of 



426 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

it, to his friend Doctor Geffecken, who was subsequently sent 
to prison by Prince Bismarck and the young Emperor for 
publishing extracts from it. 

Brief as the reign of the Emperor Frederick was, there 
were two political crises in the palace, in which Bismarck 
triumphed in the end. The first concerned the marriage 
of the Princess Victoria (second daughter of the Emperor 
Frederick) with Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who sub- 
sequently lost his bride, as he had already lost his throne ; 
the second concerned the displacement of one of the 
ministers, whom a few weeks after the accession of young 
William Prince Bismarck ostentatiously restored. 

The scenes in the Palace at Charlottenburg were distress- 
ing for some weeks, and must have greatly agitated the 
dying Emperor. In May, Queen Victoria came to Berlin, 
and her grandson and the Chancellor condescended to be 
outwardly polite to her ; but fury in Berlin was so stirred up 
against Dr. Mackenzie and the young English Empress, who 
was supposed to have favored him instead of native-born 
Germans, that he was forced to accept an escort of soldiers 
to protect him in the streets. One of the popular alle- 
gations against him was that he was descended from a 
Polish Jew. His father was really a long-descended old 
Highlander, who had hardly ever been out of Scotland in 
his life. 

At last came the end. A member of the French Em- 
bassy writes thus from Berlin, June 15, 1888 : — 

"The Emperor died this morning at a quarter-past eleven. 
For some hours the end had been known to be near. The 
Emperor had not been able to speak. All he could do was to 
move his hand and his eyehds. Several persons who saw him 
yesterday assured me that no one could imagine how piteous 
was the sight. At nine on the evening of June 14 tlie end seemed 
to be near, and all his family assembled round his bed. The 
night, however, was quiet. The Emperor did not move, but he 
lived, for from time to time great tears rolled down his cheeks. 
About four o'clock in the morning he took the hand of his wife, 
made a sign for Prince Bismarck to approach, and placed his hand 
on hers. A few moments after the Empress fainted. At ten in 




PRINCE OF WALES. 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 427 

the morning a garrison chaplain was brought in, who read the 
prayers for the dying. All those present knelt beside the bed, 
except an artist who had taken a sketch of the old Emperor's 
death-bed, and who was busily drawing in one corner ol the 
chamber. Then it began to be perceived that the dying man 
was becoming unconscious. Suddenly he raised his head, as if 
to draw one more free breath, and then it fell back upon the 
pillow. The Empress was carried, hardly conscious, from 
the chamber. His son, the new Emperor, closed his eyes." 

He was buried, with far less pomp than his aged father, 
in the parish church at Potsdam. 

Had he lived, would Germany have esteemed him as she 
ought? "It is hard," says the French writer I have quoted, 
"to answer this question. The old German court party 
may rejoice in its heart at his death ; but the lower classes, 
the bourgeoisie, — men of letters, men of learning, those 
who are the marrow of the nation, — will despair, for they 
adored him. To them he seemed the pilot who was to 
steer the ship of state to the Hesperides." The same 
writer continues : — 

" I need not tell you that the widowed Empress has not been 
popular in the court, where it has been the fashion to disap- 
prove all she does. She called in Dr. Mackenzie as a throat 
specialist, and popular rumor said it was for no reason but that 
he was a friend of the Battenbergs. She no doubt committed 
an imprudence when she caused to be moved the furniture in 
the apartments of the Queen Louise, which had never been 
touched since her death, that she might give the best rooms at 
Charlottenburg to her mother on her arrival; and at this sacri- 
lege, Berlin did nothing but howl. The love her husband bore 
her was even counted against her. The poor woman was in a 
forlorn position; and when Queen Victoria came to Berlin, it 
was dreaded lest the Berliners should visit on her the antipathy 
it was the fashion to feel for jier daughter." 

The next child of Queen Victoria was the Prince of Wales. 
It is difficult to speak of him ; for he has come prominently 
before the public in only two characters, — the maker of 
public speeches on public occasions, and the fast young 



428 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

man, known in the gay capitals of Europe as one whose 
notice and attentions have been injurious to the reputations 
of women. Enough, and more than enough, has reached 
the public ear upon this subject, and on that of baccarat. 
There are other things, of a very different kind, that can be 
said about the Prince of Wales. 

He has occupied for fifty years a very difficult position, 
and in some respects he has filled it with very remarkable 
prudence and ability. Can any situation be more trying 
than that of an English heir- apparent? Any more liable 
to unjust misrepresentations and to cruel disappointments? 
The heir of the monarchy to-day is nothing; to-morrow 
may be everything. He must efface himself. He must 
conceal his preferences and his predilections, for fear of 
exciting false hopes or creating dangerous jealousies. He 
must endeavor to shine, without absorbing other people's 
light ; and the years slip by him without giving him the 
opportunity to assert his value or his manhood. Under 
these circumstances, some heirs-apparent have been driven 
into becoming men of pleasure, some into becoming men of 
intrigue, many into becoming both. 

No Prince of Wales since Henry VIII. has been without 
blame, if he had conne of age during his father's lifetime. 
The quarrels of parents with their eldest sons, all through 
the Hanoverian dynasty, are matters of history. If public 
opinion reproaches Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, with a 
license foreign to the character of his admirable father, it 
must be conceded to him that he has ever been a dutiful 
subject, a hard worker, a man capable of rare self-control, 
a prince who has borne himself with dignity in a very 
difficult position. 

In one of his first public speeches, he told his hearers 
that, being forbidden by his birth to take any part in 
politics, he hoped to devote himself to works of national 
utility and philanthropy. In politics, he has had the cour- 
age and the constancy to remain so absolutely neutral that 
no one knows what his political predilections are. For fifty 
years he had, in general, superb good health, a gay genial 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 429 

disposition, a wonderful capacity for work, and a power of 
endurance and activity which, even among young English- 
men, was considered amazing. 

He visited Canada and the United States in the days of 
President Buchanan ; and, immediately after his father's 
death, he went to the Holy Land. He was accompanied to 
the East by a suite of gentlemen, among whom was Dean 
Stanley. The Dean published, on his return, a volume 
containing the sermons he had preached before the Prince, 
during their journey, on the spots where Biblical events had 
taken place ; and in the appendix was a very interesting 
account of the Samaritan Passover, and of the visit they 
paid to Hebron and the Cave of Machpelah, where they 
were, by an especial firman from the Sultan, permitted to 
enter the mosque built over the cave, and view the shrines 
of Sarah, Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, 
which no Christian had been allowed to do for six hundred 
years. As the gates of the shrine of Abraham were thrown 
open, the guardians groaned aloud, and the chief said : 
" The princes of any other nation should have passed over 
my dead body sooner than enter ; but to the eldest son of 
the Queen of England we are willing to accord even this 
privilege." Then, turning to the shrine, he cried : " O 
Abraham, Friend of God ! forgive this intrusion." 

Into the real cave they were not permitted to descend, 
but were suffered to bend over an aperture left open, that 
the holy air from it, coming up into the mosque, might be 
sniffed by devout worshippers. 

Even before the Prince Consort's death the Princess 
Alexandra of Denmark had been thought of as the 
Prince of Wales's bride. Her father, Prince Christian 
of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Gliicksberg, was only a 
distant relative of the childless King of Denmark when 
selected by him as his heir-presumptive. Even as heir- 
presumptive his revenues did not exceed $4,500 a year; 
but his children have been all advanced to high posi- 
tions. The Princess Alexandra may probably be Queen of 
England ; Princess Dagmar is Empress of Russia ; Prince 



430 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

George is King of Greece ; Princess Thyra married the 
Duke of Cumberland, the dispossessed King of Hanover ; 
Prince Waldemar has married the great-granddaughter of 
Louis Philippe, the rich and beautiful Princess Marie, 
daughter of the Due de Chartres. 

The Princess of Wales has always shown exquisite taste 
in dress. She and her sisters, in their days of princely 
poverty, are said to have been their own dressmakers and 
milliners. The accomplishment that in her girlhood most 
distinguished her was music : she is an admirable pianist. 
But she is sadly deaf, — which may be very inconvenient to 
her when she reaches the throne. The Queen and all her 
husband's family have been always very fond of her, and she 
is extremely popular with the English people. I think 
they are thankful that she is not a German bride. 

On March 7, 1863, "the sea-king's daughter from over 
the sea" landed at Gravesend, and was met there by the 
Prince of Wales and his mother's cousin, the Duke of Cam- 
bridge. A magnificent pageant escorted her through London, 
and she then proceeded to Windsor, where the Queen (too 
recently a widow to take part in a public fete) met and 
welcomed her. Three days later she was married. 

The Prince of Wales's country residence is at Sandring- 
ham, in Norfolk. It is said that Prince Albert selected it 
for his son because, being quite off the route of travellers, 
it is one of the quietest places in England. Here the 
family leads a country life, greatly beloved by its neighbors, 
tenants, and the villagers. The Prince and his guests 
hunt with the neighboring gentry, and entertain them in a 
country-neighborly way. Sandringham, instead of being a 
centre of intrigue, such as has too often clustered round an 
heir- apparent, is a real home, where the Prince (in spite 
of his crop of wild oats) is a most affectionate husband and 
father, surrounding himself with literary men and artists, 
noblemen of refined tastes, and distinguished foreigners. 

Eight years after his marriage the Prince of Wales was 
taken desperately ill with typhoid fever. He contracted it 
at a friend's hunting-lodge, from imperfect drainage. AU 




PRINCESS OF WALES. 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 43 1 

England was filled with anxiety, and the Queen and his 
sisters hastened to his sick bed. 

"I shall never resist illness," said Prince Albert once to 
the Queen. " You would struggle, but I should succumb." 
The Prince of Wales, as his mother would have done, fought 
hard for his life. But great as his vitality was, the doctors 
despaired of saving him. Nothing they could do would 
make him sleep. At this crisis an old woman presented 
herself at the gate of Sandringham with a hop pillow. If it 
might be put under his head, she was sure it would be 
of service to him. The hop pillow was used accordingly ; 
the Prince slept, and recovered. 

There is a white marble slab in the parish church at Sand- 
ringham, recording in simple beautiful words the thankfulness 
of his wife for his recovery. When the fever left him, she 
rose in the early morning from beside his bed, and, with 
one of her ladies, walked across the fields to early morning 
service, that in God's house she might return thanks that 
her husband was spared to her. 

It is said that the general feeling in England, on the day 
when the Prince went to St. Paul's to return public thanks for 
his recovery, produced a deep impression upon foreigners. 

When he was thirty-four, and in the prime of life, he went 
to India on a species of embassy, — the representative to 
the natives of India of her who a few months later would be 
proclaimed their Empress-Queen. He arrived there accom- 
panied by men of tried experience and ability, and nothing 
was neglected that could add brilliancy to his reception. He 
enjoyed everything like the most eager of tourists, but at 
the same time, in all that concerned official Hfe and public 
affairs he showed the tact, earnestness, and dignity which 
befitted his position. 

He has, like his mother, a beautiful voice, when reading 
or speaking. In India his activity, energy, curiosity to ob- 
serve, and powers of endurance, surprised everybody. He 
knocked up his suite repeatedly, but he himself was always 
on the alert, and ready for everything. 

Yet, though genial, easy, and kindly in all social inter- 



432 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

course, the Prince of Wales never permits any one to pre- 
sume upon his kindliness, or to forget good manners. Then 
his dignity at once asserts itself. 

He has four living children. One died in infancy ; and 
his eldest son, Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avon- 
dale, died January 14, 1892, on the eve of his marriage. 
His brother, George Frederick, the Duke of York, married, 
eighteen months later. Princess May of Teck, his intended 
bride, and he and his infant son. Prince Edward, are now in 
the line of succession. The Prince of Wales's eldest daugh- 
ter, Princess Louise, married, in 1889, the Duke of Fife, 
and has two daughters. The Princesses Victoria and Maud 
are still unmarried. The health of the latter is delicate. 

In 1884 the two young Princes, Eddy (for that is the name 
by which Prince Albert Victor was known in his family) and 
George, were sent in an English warship to visit Australia ; 
during their long voyage their mornings were to be passed 
in studies bearing on Australia and the colonies. Here is 
an extract from one of Prince George's letters, giving an 
account of a visit they paid to an Australian proprietor : 

" Some of us," he writes, " went on horseback, some in car- 
riages. The first night we slept nine in one room. In the first 
half hour after reaching our destination Eddy killed two kanga- 
roos, and I three. These creatures are so numerous that, though 
their fur would be valuable, hunters only cut off their tails, which 
make admirable soup, and which are sold for a few pence. Kan- 
garoos have great difficulty in turning round ; for this reason they 
never try to shun those who attack them, but rush upon them; 
and in this way many make their escape through the broken 
ranks of the hunters. They devour the grass needed for the 
sheep. On the estate where we were (about twenty-five thousand 
acres) four thousand were killed last year. We took one alive, 
and a baby kangaroo from its mother's pocket. When not at 
full speed, they use their tails as a lever. There are other 
animals of the same species, smaller, and using their tails 
differently from the kangaroo." 

The next child of the Queen was the one who was most 
beloved by the English nation. Princess Alice Maud Mary, 
Grand-Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt. From her earliest 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 433 

childhood she enjoyed popularity even greater than that 
bestowed on other members of her royal house ; and after 
the death of her father she was invested in English eyes with 
even a more tender interest. She was with her father in his 
latest hours ; she comforted and supported her mother in 
the first dark days of her affliction ; and she watched beside 
her brother's sick-bed even when she had husband and 
children of her own. Her Life and Letters, published in 
German, and translated by her sister, the Princess Helena, 
is a book to touch all hearts, and was read eagerly when 
it came out, in 1884. 

Alice herself, speaking of the day of the Duchess of 
Kent's death, writes to her mother : — 

" From that day dated the commencement of so much grief, 
so much sorrow; but in those days you had one, dearest mamma, 
whose first and deepest thought was to comfort and help you, 
and I saw and understood only then how he watched over you ! 
I see his dear face, so tearful and so pale, when he led me to you 
early that morning, and said, 'Comfort mamma;' as if these 
words were a presage of what was to come. In those days I 
think he knew how deep my love was for you, and that as long 
as I was left in my home, my first and only thought should be 
you and you alone. This I held as my holiest and dearest duty, 
till I had to leave you, my beloved mother. But that bond of 
love, though I can no longer be near you, is as strong as ever." 

For the first few days after her father's death Princess 
Alice took everything into her own hands, to save the Queen 
even communications with the Government and the house- 
hold. "She is our Angel in the House," wrote one of the 
ladies-in- waiting. 

She had been engaged some months before her father's 
death to Prince Louis of Hesse, the future Grand-Duke 
of Darmstadt. The marriage was celebrated quietly at 
Osborne July i, 1862. 

The world never learned to regard Prince Louis with 
entire admiration, but his wife adored him. "You'tell me 
to speak of my happiness — our happiness," she writes to 
the Queen. " If I say I love my dear husband, that is 

28 



434 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

scarcely enough. It is a love and esteem which increases 
daily. What was life before, to what it has become to me 
now? " 

There is no need to dwell upon the life she found so 
happy. The young people were very poor for their posi- 
tion, and Princess Alice's life was a combination of the 
Princess and the house-mother who pulls hard at both 
ends of her income to make them meet. She was inter- 
ested in art, in literature, and in learned men. At one 
time Strauss almost led her away from the faith of her 
girlhood ; but she was saved by fresh experience of her 
need of a personal God and Saviour, in hours of anxiety 
and sorrow. Her especial mission she considered to be 
the improvement of the condition of women. Sanitary 
matters also claimed her attention. Alas ! that her cares 
had not extended in this matter to the Ducal Palace at 
Darmstadt. 

In the Prusso-Austrian war of 1866, and in the Franco- 
Prussian war of 1870, she founded the Woman's Union, to 
assist in nursing and relieving soldiers in time of war, and 
in peace to train nurses and assist in hospitals. All sorts 
of other benevolent institutions she estabhshed, — schools 
for idiots, kindergartens, societies for the employment of 
women. She went herself among the poor in their own 
houses, and she was the most devoted and untiring of 
mothers. She did too much, for she was rarely well. It 
pains us to hear her say : " I have made all the summer 
out-walking dresses, seven in number, — not embroidered, 
but made from beginning to end ; likewise the new neces- 
sary flannel shawls for the expected. I manage all the 
nursery accounts and everything myself, which gives me 
plenty to do." 

In the war of 1866 Prince Louis served with the Austrian 
army against Prussia. In 1870 he was on the Prussian side 
in the army corps of his wife's brother-in-law. 

A terrible sorrow to Princess Alice was the fall out of a 
window in June, 1873, of her little boy Fritz, while looking 
at a miUtary procession. The child's death took place, as 




DUKE OF YORK. 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 435 

it were, in his mother's presence. In reference to it she 
quotes some lines from a German poet. 

" Now unto you the Lord has done 
That which we wished to do ; 
We would have trained you up, — and now 
'T is we are trained by you. 

" With grief and tears, O children. 
Do you your parents train. 
And lure us on and up to you, 
To meet in Heaven again." 

The loss of little Fritz was terribly felt by Ernest, his next 
brother. Their mother writes to their grandmother : — 

"Yesterday Ernie was telling his nurse that I was going to 
plant some Spanish chestnuts, and she said, ' Oh, I shall be dead 
and gone before they are big.' Ernie burst out crying, and 
said, ' No ! you must not die alone ; I don't like people to die 
alone. We must all die together.' It is the remaining behind 
the loss, the missing of the dear ones, that is the cruel thing to 
bear. Only time can teach one that^ and resignation to a higher 
will." 

They came near all fulfilling little Ernie's wish, and dying 
together. Prince Louis became Grand-Duke of Darmstadt, 
and the Grand- Ducal Palace, like most mediaeval buildings, 
was ill-drained. The children and their father sickened 
with diphtheria. The mother nursed them with unresting 
devotion. One Httle darling died. The mother in her 
agony kissed the face of her dying child, and took the 
infection. She was too run down by nursing and hard 
work to recover. She died December 14, 1878, — the 
anniversary of her father's death, seventeen years before. 

The Queen has considered herself the mother of her 
orphaned children, and has arranged their marriages. 
Ernest has succeeded his father as Grand- Duke, and is 
unmarried. The eldest daughter. Princess Victoria, has 
married her morganatic cousin, Prince Louis of Batten- 
berg. Princess Elizabeth has married the Grand-Duke 
Sergius of Russia, and is beloved by the imperial family. 



436 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and unhappy in her husband. Princess Irene, the third 
sister, has married Prince Henry of Prussia ; and Princess 
Ahx is not yet married. 

Queeii Victoria's fourth child was Prince Alfred, the 
Duke of Edinburgh, who, on the recent death of his uncle, 
his father's brother, became the reigning Duke of Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha. In England he is Admiral of the Fleet. 
He must be a man of courage, for in 1883 he was con- 
spicuous at the dangerous ceremony of the coronation of 
the Emperor Alexander III. of Russia. He had married 
the Grand-Duchess Marie, sister of the Emperor, and only 
daughter of Alexander 11. ; for English law permits the 
marriage of one of the royal family with a member of the 
Greek Church, though not with a Roman Catholic. The 
Prince is said to have great skill as a musician ; but he and 
his sister, the Princess Christian, seem to be less known to 
the public than any of their family. He and his wife have 
one son and four daughters, — Prince Alfred, now twenty 
years old ; Princess Marie, wife to Prince Ferdinand, heir- 
presumptive to the throne of Roumania ; Princess Victoria 
Mehta, married recently to the Grand Duke of Hesse- 
Darmstadt ; and Princesses Alexandra and Beatrice, who 
are still in the schoolroom. Their mother, the Grand- 
Duchess, is said to care Httle for gayety, but to be stately, 
reserved, and melancholy, — which is not surprising in a 
member of the Russian imperial family, for all her re- 
lations walk in dread of dynamite. Nor is she exempt 
from danger. A few years since, the Russian consul at 
Malta, an unsuspected Nihilist, was instrumental in putting 
an explosive into her box at the opera. 

Princess Helena — or, as she is now called. Princess 
Christian — is an admirable translator, and must be a very 
sensible woman, judging by what she writes, which is always 
in the best taste possible. She is evidently the darling of 
her sisters, and was her mother's secretary, companion, and 
daughter at home after the departure of the Princess Alice. 
Rumor says that Prince Christian was brought to the Queen's 
notice by her seeing him much affected at the unveiling of 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 437 

a statue of the Prince Consort, and that this led to her 
thinking of him as a suitor for her daughter ; besides, she 
wanted a husband for her Helena (" Lenchen " her family 
call her) who would not take her from England. The 
Prince of Wales opposed the marriage, one of his reasons 
being that Prince Christian was of the branch of the royal 
family of Denmark opposed to that of the reigning family, 
to which Princess Alexandra belongs. Prince Christian is 
a somewhat elderly man, and has never been a great favor- 
ite in England, though the ready good-nature of his wife 
makes her extremely popular. She presides at numberless 
fancy bazaars and other charitable associations. They were 
married in 1866, and have two sons and two daughters; 
one of the latter. Princess Louise, was married in 1891 to 
Prince Aribert of Anhalt. 

Princess Louise, the next daughter of Queen Victoria, 
was married in March, 187 1, to John, Marquis of Lome, 
eldest son of the Duke of Argyll. The Queen was very 
fond of the Duchess of Argyll, and it is said that the two 
mothers planned the match when the Marquis and the 
Princess were both children. In the Queen's book on their 
family life in the Highlands she relates the courtship, and 
" how Louise came and told her of her engagement, and of 
Lome's expressions of devotion to her." The match was 
immensely popular in England. Archibald Forbes relates 
how, when he rode into Paris after the siege in 18 71, the 
first question of all the English he met was, " Is the Princess 
Louise married? " 

The marriage has been childless ; nor does the Marquis 
(heir to the most distinguished name in Scotland) seem to 
have fulfilled the extravagant expectations some people had 
formed of him. He and the Princess went out to Canada, 
the Marquis being appointed Governor-General. But his 
administration was not successful ; nor does the Princess 
seem to have adapted herself to Canadian ways. 

The Princess Louise is an especial patroness of art 
needlework and the South Kensington Museum. Her face 
is distinguished by its fine intellectual profile, and her figure 



438 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

for its graceful pose. " The Princess is exceedingly sym- 
pathetic, merry, and light-hearted," writes Mr. Motley in 
1877. "She has decided artistic talents, — draws, paints, 
and models, and does your likeness in a few sittings very 
successfully. Nobody could be a kinder or more graceful 
hostess." 

Prince Arthur William Patrick, Duke of Connaught, was 
" a dear, bright little fellow " in his baby days, and godson 
and namesake of the Duke of WelUngton, — as charming a 
compliment as ever was paid to a subject by a sovereign. 
He is a general in the English army, and has been in com- 
mand of the camp at Aldershot. He married the Princess 
Louise Marguerite, daughter of Prince Frederick Charles of 
Prussia, — the Red Prince, who won renown next to Von 
Moltke in the Seven Weeks' War and the Franco-Prussian 
campaigns. They were married in 1879, and have three 
children. The Prince's name and title led to the conclu- 
sion that it was hoped to associate him with the government 
and pacification of Ireland ; but the post has proved too 
difficult, and the design too hopeless, for any administration 
to put the lord-lieutenancy into his hands. 

In 1882, the Duke was in Egypt with General Sir Garnet 
Wolseley, and at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir fought against 
Arabi Pasha, heading a brigade of the Guards in the night 
march and assault on a very strong position. 

The Queen, who was at Balmoral, knew the battle was 
impending, and she wrote in her Journal : — 

" How anxious we felt I cannot say, but we tried not to give 
way. I prayed earnestly for my darling child, and longed for 
the morrow to arrive. Read Korner's beautiful ' Prayer before 
the Battle,' — ' Father, I call on Thee.' My beloved husband 
used to sing it often. My thoughts were entirely fixed on E,;jypt 
and the coming battle. My nerves were strained to such a 
pitch by the intensity of my anxiety and suspense that they 
seemed to feel as if they were all alive." 

At last came a telegram announcing the victory, with a 
postscript from Sir Garnet : — 




DUCHESS OF YORK 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 439 

"Duke of Connaught is well. Behaved admirably, leading 
his brigade to the attack." 

" I carried it," says the Queen, "to Beatrice, where Louischen 
[the Duchess of Connaught] was, and I showed it to her, 
embracing her warmly, saying what joy and pride and sense 
of thankfulness it was to know our darling safe, and so much 
praised." 

Queen Victoria's eighth child was Prince Leopold, on 
whom was conferred the ever-unlucky title of Duke of 
Albany. He was delicate from his birth, in a manner 
that made the smallest wound or scratch a serious matter. 
He lived almost entirely under the care of Colonel Grey, 
and the English public believed that in disposition and 
turn of thought he was the one of the Queen's sons who 
most resembled his father. 

At one time there was some talk of his taking orders. 
He was known to the public by his excellent speeches, and 
he was frequently called upon to make them on occasions 
of public interest. 

He went to Oxford, though his health had prevented his 
going, as he wished, to Eton. He was forever cut off from 
the sports and athletic exercises of other young men, in 
which he took great interest, and of which he seemed 
extremely fond. During all his short life he associated 
as much as possible with " great men, — men of renown." 
Mr. Ruskin was fond of him ; and Prince Leopold said 
that he had " never looked up with such reverence to any 
man as he did to Ruskin." 

In 1879, he moved his personal establishment to Clare- 
mont, a house always associated with sorrow. He was a 
loving brother to his sisters, and a tender uncle to his 
orphaned nieces at Darmstadt. In 1882, he married 
Princess Helen of Waldeck, a lady gentle, good, and 
gracious, who since her own widowhood has filled the 
place of a daughter to the widowed Queen. 

Prince Leopold had been somewhat out of health in 
1884, and went to Cannes, a place he was fond of, to 
recover. At Cannes, in his boyhood, he had had a strange 



440 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

psychological experience, and it is probable that this was 
repeated, for a friend says : — 

" The Duke, two days before his death, w^;//^talk to me of 
death, and said he would like a military funeral. In fact, I had 
great difficulty in getting him off that subject. At last I asked 
him why he talked on this matter. He was interrupted at the 
moment, but said : ' I will tell you later.' I never saw him to 
speak to again, but he finished his answer to me to another lady. 
' For two nights,' he said, ' Princess Alice has appeared to me in 
my dreams, and says she is quite happy, and wants me to come 
and join her. That is what makes me so thoughtful.' " 

He went out that night alone, without, as usual, a gentle- 
man in attendance. Returning, he stumbled on the marble 
steps of the hotel, owing, it is believed, to vertigo or 
apoplexy, and fell, injuring his head. He died in a few 
hours. 

He left a little daughter, and had a posthumous son. 

The youngest of the Queen's children is Princess Beatrice, 
now thirty-seven years of age. Her face is full of character. 
" Baby " they long called her in her home circle, and the 
family letters and journals are full of her sweet baby ways 
and little accomplishments. 

She grew up to be her mother's especial companion, 
absorbed in all the joys, cares, and sorrows of the Queen. 
The world said there was an attachment between Princess 
Beatrice and the Prince Imperial, and the story appears to 
have some color, from entries concerning the sad tragedy 
of his death in her mother's Journal. It was also said that 
the Queen was anxious that Princess Beatrice should be the 
second wife of the widowed husband of Princess Alice ; 
and with that view used her personal influence to get the 
bill permitting marriage with a deceased wife's sister to pass 
through Parliament. Meantime the Duke of Darmstadt 
had formed other views ; he desired to contract a morga- 
natic marriage with Madame Kol^mine, the divorced wife 
of a Russian diplomatist. This marriage the Queen broke 
off, considering it an insult to the memory of her daughter ; 



QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE. 44 1 

and, although the Grand Duke had been married to Ma- 
dame Kol^mine, he was divorced from her in the Hessian 
courts. 

Princess Beatrice is a charming artist, and once pub- 
lished a beautiful birthday book, illustrated by her own 
drawings. She loves bric-a-brac, old lace, and such mat- 
ters, and says of herself she could find it in her heart to 
have as many gowns as Queen Elizabeth. Some one who 
saw her with her mother a few years since in the little 
church at Aix said that her care of that dear mother made 
a pretty picture. " She seemed to be listening, watching, 
breathing for the Queen ; not in a fussy, irritating manner ; 
but with the most genuine consideration she would steal 
her hand into that of her mother, hand her a fan, pull up 
her shawl, give her a cordial little smile." 

Princess Beatrice has married Prince Henry of Batten- 
berg, who is handsome and well educated. Before his mar- 
riage he was an officer in a Prussian regiment, with only 
slender pay. But the marriage was celebrated with much 
pomp in July, 1885, the young Princesses of Wales then 
making their first appearance in public as their aunt's brides- 
maids ; together with Princess Irene of Hesse, who has 
since married Prince Henry of Prussia. By the way, there 
must be considerable fraternal affection between this Prus- 
sian Prince and his eccentric brother the Emperor, for the 
Prince, when his first child was born at Kiel, held him up 
at once to the telephone, that his voice mightbe heard at 
Potsdam by his imperial uncle. 

Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg 
have three sons and a daughter. The Princess and 
the widowed Duchess of Albany take turns in living with 
the Queen. 

At the Jubilee on June 21, 1887, the Queen, as she sat 
in regal state to receive the homage of her children and 
grandchildren on that spot where she assumed her royal 
robes fifty years before, must have been a touching sight to 
all beholders. Long and blameless has been her reign, 
marked on her own part by rare tact and self-denial. 



442 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH'CENTURY. 

Queen Victoria alone of English queens regnant has 
been a mother and a queen at the same time. Elizabeth, 
Mary Tudor, and the second Mary were childless. Queen 
Anne had had the misfortune to lose all her children before 
she ascended the throne. 



Note to Page 294. 

A dear friend who has been much in India, and who shares the 
enthusiasm widely felt for Hodson's splendid services, is desirous I 
should add to the account of Hodson's court-martial (largely taken 
from the English " National Review," though elsewhere ^ell corrobo- 
rated) the opinion of his friends Lord Napier and Sir R. Montgom- 
ery concerning the charges brought against him of dishonesty. Lord 
Napier says : " The result of Major Taylor's laborious and patient 
investigation of Lieutenant Hodson's regimental accounts has fully 
justified, but not at all added to, the confidence I have throughout 
maintained in the honor and uprightness of his conduct." Sir R. 
Montgomery (Chief Commissioner in Oude) writes: "The whole 
report of Major Taylor seemed more satisfactory than any I ever read ; 
and, considering Major Taylor's high character and the pains he took 
to investigate every detail, it must prove triumphant." Major Tay- 
lor's report was made in February, 1856, but it was never submitted 
to the Government of India till March, 1857, on the eve of the 
Mutiny. Lord Dalhousie left India having heard the charges, but not 
the vindication. Hodson's old schoolfellow, Mr. Thomas Hughes, 
wrote in his vindication shortly after his death in the " Edinburgh 
Review," and General Anson and Sir Henry Lawrence also stood 
by him. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Abderrahman Khan, 375, 376, 383-386. 

Adam, Dr., 112. 

Adams, John Qiiincy, interview with 
George III., 28, 29. 

Adelaide, Queen, wife of William IV., 
^7, 15S, 202, 239. 

Afghanistan, 168-171. 

Agra, 269-272, 310. 

Akbar Khan, 17S, 179, 181-184, 194. 

Albany, Leopold, Duke of, 439, 440 ; 
Duchess of, 72, 439. 

Albert, Prince Consort, 40, 146-149 ; 
his letters, 149, 150, 153, 15^, 157, 
241, 324, 326, 329; engagement, 
150-153; marriage day, 154, 155; 
married life, 155, 156; connection 
with the Exhibition, 227-237; his 
character, 253, 325 ; his excessive 
labors, 326-328, 332, 333, 336, 339, 
his death-bed, 339-342. 

Alexander the Great, 336. 

Alexandra. See Princess of Wales. 

Alexandria, 429, 430. 

Alfred, Prince. See Edinburgh. 

Alice, Grand-Duchess of Hesse-Darm- 
stadt, 318, 326, 432-435- 

Alison, Sir Archibald, quoted, 179, 
180, 213. 

Almshouses, 20T. 

Althorp, Lord, loS-iii. 

Ameers of Scinde, 207-209. 

Amelia, Princess, 25, 26. 

America in 1822, 12. 

American Civil War, 358, 399. 

Anti-Jacobin, So, 81. 



Arab, leaguer of, 269. 

Arthur, Prince. See Connaught . 

Asgad, 300. 

Ashley, Lord, 16, 17, 18. 

Auckland, Lord, 171, 172, 189. 

Augusta, Princess, 32, 33, 34. 

Aurungzebe, 257. 

Azful Khan, 375. 

Azim Khan, 374, 375, 376. 

Azimoolah Khan, 285, 286. 



B 



Bagehot. Walter, quoted, 96, 1 11. 

Bala-Hissar, 178, 179, 384, 

Baly, Dr., 337. 

Banks, Major, 298. 

Barnard, Simon, 319, 320. 

Bashi-Bazouks, 362. 

Bayard, Mr., 221. 

Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Disraeli. 

Countess of, 354, 355, 356. 
Beatrice, Princess, 440, 441. 
Bed Chamber dispute, 138, 139. 
Beloochistan, 366. 
Bentinck, Lord George, 219, 352, 356, 

357 
Bismarck, Prince, 369, 419-423, 426. 
Bolan Pass, 171-173. 
Bokhara, 196, 199, 
Bombay, 279, 282. 
Bright, John, 207, 400. 
Bristol riots, 105-108. 
Browning, Mrs., iS. 
Brougham, Henry, Lord, rii-114. 
Broughton, Lord, 99, 100, 126-130. 



44^ 



INDEX. 



Brydon, Dr., 183, 184, 300. 
Bulgaria, massacres in, 359. 
Bulwer, Edward (Lord Lytton), 397. 
Burnes, Sir Alexander, 169, 171, 176, 

177. 
Byrd, Colonel, 47. 
Byron, Lord, 45, 132. 



Cabul (1839), 174 et seq. ; mission to, 

18, 378; 379, 381- 

Cambridge, Augustus, Duke of, 38, 
44, 236 ; Prince George of, 145, 231, 
234 ; Princess Mary, see Teck. 

Campbell, Sir Colin, See Clyde, Lord. 

Canada, 137, 138. 

Canning, George, 9, 10, Tji 78, 81, 83- 
• 86, 386, 390, 391. 

Canning, Lord, 282, 309, 310. 

Carlotta, Empress of Mexico, 72, 336. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 163, 329. 

Caroline, queen of George IV., 54-59, 

"3- 

Cartwright, Edward, 17, 91. 

Major John, 91. 
Castlereagh, Lord, 14, 15, 73, 74, 76- 

79, 85- 
Catholic Emancipation, 59, 60, 81, 90, 

91, 161. 
Cavagnari, Sir Louis, 268, 380, 381. 
Cawnpore, 284, 289, 298, 309, 310. 
Charlotte, Princess Royal. See Wiir- 

temberg. Queen of. 
Charlotte, Princess, wife of Leopold 

of Saxe-Coburg, 35, 52, 56, di-'jz. 
Charlotte, Queen, wife of George IIL, 

21, 24, 26, 34, 52, 54, 64, 65, 413. 
Charter and Chartists, 222-224. 
Children in factories, 16-19. 
Chillianwallah, 216. 
Chiltern Hundreds, loi. 
Chimney-sweeps, 15, 16. 
Chinese war, 191, 192. 
Christian, Mr., 275, 276. 
Christian, Prince. 436, 437. 
Princess. See Helena. 
Christians, massacre of native, in India, 

271, 272 ; in Bulgaria, 359. 
Claremont, 70-72. 



Clarence, Duke of. See William IV. ; 

Albert Victor, Duke of, 432. 
Clontarf, 165. 
Clyde, Lord, 282, 298, 303-307, 309, 

360. 
Cobbett, William, 114-123. 
Cobden, Mr., 203. 
Coffin, Sir Isaac, 91, 221. 
Commons, House of, 97-101, 108, 114. 
Congress, of Berlin, 364, 365, 366; of 

Vienna, 73, 78. 
Connaught, Arthur, Duke of, 337, 438. 
Conolly, Captain, 198, 199. 
Corn Laws, 203, 204, 205, 352, 353, 

395- 
Coronation, of George IV., 58 ; of 

Queen Victoria, 139-144. 
Crimean war, 254, 255. 
Cumberland, Duke of, 13, 40, 41, 128. 

See Ernest, King of Hanover. 

D. 

Dalhousie, Lord, 265, 277, 278, 285. 

Dalrymple, Sir Hew, 87. 

Daniel Deronda, 349. 

Daughters of George III., 30-36. 

Delhi, 260, 262, 263, 266, 290-293, 298 ; 
Emperpr of Delhi, 295, 297. 

Derby, Earl of, 34, 87, 347. 

Dickens, Charles, 15, 45, 164. 

Dilemma, 268. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beacons- 
field, 218, 320, 347-349, 350, 352, 
354-361, 366-369. 

Dost Mohammed, 1 69-1 71, 174-176, 
192, 193. 195, 207, 373. 

Douranee Empire, 169, 170. 

Doyle. Sir Francis, 390, 392. 

Dunmore, Lord, 42, 43. 

Durham, Lord, 137, 138. 



E. 



Earthquake, 186. 

East India Company, 167, 207, 256, 

257, 3">357- 
Edgeworth, Miss, 348. 
Edinburgh, Alfred, Duke of, 436 ; 

Duchess of, 436 ; children of, 436. 
Edward III., 422. 



INDEX. 



447 



Eight Days, 263. 

Elections in England, 59, 60. 

Elgin, Lord, 311. 

Eliot, George, 334, 349. 

Elizabeth, Princess. See Homburg. 

Ellenborough, Lord, 184, 190, 191, 

210, 211, 373. 
Elliott, 204. 
Elphinstone, General, 176, 177, 179, 

1S3, 1S6, 194. 
Elphinstone, Lord, 145, 279. 
Empress of India, Queen Victoria, 360, 

361. 
Endymion, 268, 269. 
England in 1822, 9, 10, 11; in 1832, 

94-97; in 1848, 217; Young, 352, 

353- 
Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 

48,49, 51. 
Ernest, King of Hanover, 41, 129. 
Este, 43. 

Eton, 80,. 388, 390-392. 
Eton Miscellany, 391, 392. 
Eugenie, Empress, 318, 351. 
Eurasians, 269. 
" Europe in Africa," 254, 411 
Exhibition, the Great, 227-239. 
Eyre, Sir Vincent, 180-183, ^^9, 

270. 



Factories, 16, 17, 18. 

Factory children, 16-19. 

Famine in Ireland, 218-220. . 

Farquhar, quoted, 270-272. 

Ferozeshah, 213, 214. 

Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 76. 

Fitzherbert, Maria, Mrs., 48-53. 

Forster, Mr. W. E., 407. 

Fox, Charles James, 49, 50, 53, 54, 

n- 

France in 1822, 10. 

French invasion of Ireland, 76. 

French Revolution, 53. 

Frederick, Emperor of Germany, 422, 

423-426. 
Frederick, Prince of Wales, 23. 
Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth, 19-22. 
Futteghur, 271, 272, 286. 



G. 

Geffecken, Dr. 426. . 

George III., 23-29, 31, 34, 43.412. 413- 

George IV., 45-48, 53-57, 58, 60, 62, 

63, 82, 83, 117, 163. 
George V. of Hanover, 41, 42. 
Ghiljzees, 197, 386. 
Ghuzee, 174. 

Gladstone, Mrs., 401-403. 
Gladstone, W. E., 112, 323, 324, 342, 

344, 345. 358, 362, 363, 387-402, 

404-410. 
Goorkas, 177. 
Gordon, General, 406, 407, 
Gortschakoff. Prince, 374. 
Gough, Lord (Sir Hugh), 212-216. 
Greville, Charles, 127; quoted, 36, 63, 

140, 144. 
Grey, Lord, 102, 108, no, 124. 
Griffin, Sir Lepel, 384-386. 
Gwalior, 207, 303, 307, 310. 

H. 

Hallam, Arthur, 388, 390, 392. 
Hardinge, Lord, 211-215. 
Havelock, Sir Henry, 193, 282, 287, 

288, 298, 301, 302, 308, 309. 
Hawarden, 408. 

Haynau, General, 217, 218, 249. 
Helena, Princess Christian, 436, 437. 
Henry III., 411, 412. 
Henry of Prussia, 441. 
Herat, 169, 170. 
Herbert of Muckross, 337. 
Hill, Rowland, Rev., 393. 
Hill, Rowland, 221. 
Hodson, 293-297, 311, 
Holyrood, 60-63, '418. 
Homburg, Landgrave of, 33-35: 

Landgravine of, 33, 34, 35. 
Homer, 389, 398, 399. 
Home Rule, 162, 404, 405, 407. 
Hudson, 220. 
Hyderabad, 209 ; battle of, 210. 



Ibrahim Pasha, 206. 

India, 167, 255-258, 311-314. 



448 



INDEX. 



Inglis, General Sir J,, 281, 298-300. 

Inverness, Duchess of, 43. 

Ionian Isles, 397, 398. 

Ireland, 74-77, 218-220; Young, 164, 

165, 222. 
Irish Church, 405. 
Irish Parliament, 74. 
Irish Rebellion, 161, 166. 



Jackson, General Andrew, 137, 320. 
Janin, Jules, quoted, 239. 
Jellalabad,i74, 177, 183, 184, 188-190. 
Jenkyns, 379, 3S0. 
Jennings, 262, 263. 
Jingoism, 364. 

John Company. See East India Co. 
Jubilee, George III, 's, 412, 413. 
Jubilee, Queen Victoria's, 414-416, 
441. 



Kavanagh, Charles Henry, 306, 317. 
Kaye, Sir J, W., quoted, 188. 
Keate, Dr., 389, 390. 
Kent, Edward, Duke of, 38-40 ; 
Duchess of, 40, 41, 130, 170, 334, 

335. 336- 
Khyber Pass, 171, 181-183. 
Kinglake, 400. 
Kingsley, Charles, 334. 
Knapp, Rev, Mr., 389. 
Koh-i-noor. 170. 
Kolemine, Madame, 440. 
Konieh, battle of, 206. 



L. 

Lablache, 156. 

Lamartine, 222. 

Lamb, Lady Caroline, 131, 132. 

Lawrence, Sir George St. Patrick, 182, 

186, 264, 267. 
Lawrence, Sir Henry, 264, 265, 273- 

275, 277-2S2, 289, 303, 305. 311. 
Lawrence, John, Lord, 262, 264, 265, 

290, 291, 304, 311, 312. 



Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 70, 71. 
Leopold, King of the Belgians, 40, 68, 

69, 71, 72. 
Leopold, Prince. See Albany. 
Letters, 153, 154. 
Lever, Charles, 76. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 339. 
Lincoln, Lord, 393-395- 
Londonderry, Marquis of. See Castle- 

reagh. 
Longfellow, H. W., 249. 
Lome, Marquis of, 437 ; Marchioness. 

See Louise. 
Louis, Grand Duke of Darmstadt, 328, 

329, 332, 337, 400, 440, 441- 
Louis Philippe, 72, 217, 239. 
Louise, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg- 

Gotha, 147. 
Louise, Princess, 395, 437, 43S. 
Louise. Queen of the Belgians, 72, 239. 
Lowell, Rev. R., 314-316. 
Lucknow, 273-275, 298-308, 311, 314- 

316. 
Lugershall, 85, 90, 99. 



M. 

Macaulay, Lord, 98, 167, 255, 285. 
McCarthy, Justin, quoted, 124, 164, 

192, 225, 239, 320. 
McKenzie, Captain Colin, 182, 194- 

198. 
Mackenzie, Dr., 426. 
Macnaughten, Sir William, 174, 177- 

179; Lady, 182, 184, 185. 
Macpelah, cave of, 429, 
Maginn, Dr., Homeric Ballads, 399. 
Malmesbury, Lord, 35, 54-56. 
Mandarin, 236, 237. 
Manning, Cardinal, 388, 393. 
Maranee, 212, 215, 216. 
Martineau, Miss H,, 143, 144. 
Mary, Duchess of Gloucester, 35. 
Mary, Landgravine of Homburg, 34. 
Mary, Duchess of Teck, 415. 
May, Duchess of York, 432. 
Maynooth. 396. 
Mayo, Lord, 375, 377. 
Maximilian, 336. 
Maxwell, Sir W. Stirling, 131. 
Meanee, 209, 210. 



INDEX. 



449 



Meerut, 261, 262. 

Mehemet Ali, 206. 

Meiwand, 3S4. 

Melbourne, Lord, 124, 131, 132, 137, 

157, 15S, 159. 
Mensdorff, Count, 148. 
Merivale, Dean, 264. 
Mirza Baboo, 1S5-187. 
Mohamider, 276, 277. 
Mohammed Akbar, 187. 
Mohammed Badahen. See Delhi. 
Monster petitions, (1S39), 222, 223 ; 

(184S), 223-226. 
Monthly Packet, quoted, 142, 143, 414, 

415, 416. 
Moodkee, 213, 214, 
Moore, Thomas, 46, 47. 
Murray, Lady Augusta, 42-44. 

N. 

Nana Sahib, 278, 279, 284, 285, 289, 

290. 
Napier, Admiral Sir Charles, 206. 
Napier, General Sir Charles, 208-210, 

215, 216. 
Napiers, 24. 
Napoleon L, 24, 31, 32, 96, 170, 171, 

249. 
Napoleon IIL, 317-320, 357. 
Neill, General, 301, 302. 
Newcastle, Duke of, 394, 395. 
Nicholson, Colonel, 291. 
Northbrooke, Lord, 377, 380. 
Norton, Mrs. Caroline, 131. 
Nott, General, 190, 207. 

O. 
O'Brien, 222. 

OXonnell, Daniel, 12S, 159-166, 349, 

35°- 
O'Connor, Feargus, 222-226.* 
Oliphant, Mrs., quoted, 22. 
Opium, 192. 
Orange, Prince of, 65. 
Orleans, Duke of, 17, 47. 
Orsini, Felice, 318, 319, 357. 
Outlook, quoted, 371, 372. 
Outram, Sir James, 209, 282, 298, 302, 

303. 310. 3"' 
Oxford, 57, 



P. 

Pacifico, Don, 239, 240. 
Palmerston, Lord, 171, 172, 218, 238, 

239, 240, 254, 255, 320-322, 340, 

344-346, 360. 
Parliament, loi, 108, 114, 343-346. 
Paxton, Sir Joseph, 232. 
Peel, Captain W., R. N., 283, 298, 303. 
Peel, Sir Robert, 138, 158, 160, 161, 

200, 203-206, 218, 23S-254, 351. 
Personal and family recollections, 24, 

33-37, 42, 57-60, 87, 89, 94-97, lox, 

102, 114, 115, 125, 126, 129, 130, 

137, 139, 140, 141, 159, 163, 205, 

206, 245, 255, 268. 
Peshawar, 188. 
Phipps, Sir Charles, 323-325, 330, 

331- 

Pitt, 53, 77, So. 

Poerio, Carlo, 396. 

Pollock, General, 187, 190, 207, 

Ponsonby, Lord, 83, 84. 

Portland, Duke of, 13. 

Postage, 12, 13, 179, 182, 194, 221, 
222. 

Potatoes, 218. 

Pottinger, Eldred, 182. 

Primrose League, 370-372. 

Prussia, King Frederick William of, 
231. Crown-Princess of, 324, 326, 
ZZIi 336, 337, 417-427; Crown- 
Prince, 423-427. 

Punch, 164, 230, 347. 



Queen Victoria : her birth, 39 ; her 
childhood, 40 ; her accession, 124- 
126; her first Council, 126-128; her 
first minister, 135-139, 157; her 
coronation, 139-144 ; her marriage, 
154, 155; her daily life, 155, 156; 
the Great Exhibition, 227-237 ; her 
note on the Proclamation to the 
people of India, 313 : her gratitude 
at the Prince Consort's escape from 
danger, 330, 331 ; her mother's 
dcatli-bed, 335-336 ; her husband's 
death-bed, 339-342 ; her children, 



29 



450 



INDEX. 



416-441; her widowhood, 345, 413, 

414; her jubilee, 414-416. 
Queenstown, 418. 
Quetta, 386. 



R. 

Raih-oad fever, 220, 221. 

Railroads in England, gi-93 ; Balti- 
more and Ohio, 92. 

Rajahpootra, 267. 

Reform Bill, 94-105 , subsequent 
reform bills, 203, 346, 358. 

Resolute, 321-323. 

Roberts, General Sir Frederick, 382- 

384. 
Rogers, Samuel, 349, 
Rotten boroughs, 98, 99. 
Royal Marriage Act, 42. 
Runjeet Singh, 170, 210. 
Rush, Benjamin, 34. 
Russell, Lord John (Earl Russell), 

104, 105, 249, 346. 
Russia, 168, 170, 171, 254, 255, 363, 

372, 373- 



Sale, Lady, 1S2, 184, 188, 189, 192, 193. 
Sale, Sir Robert, 183, 184, 1S7, 189, 

213. 
Scinde, 207, 210. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 60-62, 334, 339, 

340, 349. 35<^) 418, 419. 
Sepoys, 168, 210, 259, 266, 300, 301. 
Shah Soojah, 170-174, 177, 178, 190. 
Shaftesbury, Lord. See Ashley. 
Shere Ali, 373-379- 
Sibthorp, Colonel, 230, 231. 
Sikhs, 211, 213-216, 263, 264, 307, 
Sikh wars, (i) 212-215 ; (2) 216. 
Skobeleff, General, 361, 363, 374, 377, 

378. 
Smith, General Baird, 292. 
Smith, Goldwin, quoted, 24(1, 246. 
Smith, Rev. Sydney, quoted, 14-16, 

18, 133- 
Sobraon, 215. 

Somnauth, gates of, 191, 193, 194. 
Sophia, Princess, 35. 



Soult, Marshal, 140, 141. 

Southey, 18. 

Spencer, Earl. See Althorp. 

Stanley Dean, 429. 

Stockmar, Baron, 159, 231, 249-253, 

335- 
Stoddart, 198, 199. 
Suez Canal, 360. 
Sully, 212, 215. 
Sussex, Augustus Frederick, Duke of, 

42, 43» 44 



Tamerlane, 137. 

Tancred, 359. 

Tantia Topi, 290. 

Taylor, Alec, 292, 

Taylor, Sir Henry, qicoted, 400. 

Taxes, 14, 15. 

Teck, Duchess of, 415. 

Tennyson, Lord, 155, 231, 249, 285, 

300, 301, 314, 324, 325, 368. 
Thackeray, W. M., 45, 232, 238. 
Thugs, 258. 
Tichborne, 402-404, 
Tone, Wolfe, 76. 

Treaty of London, 85 ; of Paris, 364. 
Trent, 337, 338. 
Turkish war, 361, 363. 



V 

Victoria. See Queen Victoria. 
Vienna, Congress of, 2. 
Villiers, 203. 
Volunteers, 321, 



W 

Wales, Albert Edward, Prince of. 15S, 
327, 328, 336, 427-432 ; Princess 
of, 429-431 ; their children, 432. 

Walewski, Count, 248. 

Waterloo, 87, 88. 

Wellington, Duke of, 85, 86, 89, 90, 
92, 93> 99) 136, 137; 140, 141. 167, 
171, 172, 174, iSo, 191, 193, 20':', 
216, 224, 226, 237, 240, 2461-249, 
357- 



INDEX. 



451 



Wetherell, Sir Charles, 106. 
Wheeler, Sir Hugh, 267, 278, 279, 

284-2S6. 
Whitbread, So. 
VVilkie, Sir David, 129. 
William IV., 40, 63, 102-104, 126. 
William, Emperor, 32S. 
William II., Emperor, 231, 233, 246- 

249, 427-432- 
Willoughby, Lieutenant, 263. 
Wilson, General, 291, 292, 295. 
Windham, General, 309. 
Wolff, Joseph, 199. 



Women, compassionate to English 

fugitives, 277, 2S7. 
Wiirtemberg, King of, 30, 31, 32 ; 

Queen of, 30, 31, 32. 



Yakoob Khan, yj"]^ 378, 380-382. 
Yonge, Miss Charlotte, 105, 141, 142. 
York, Frederick, Duke of, 36, y], 52. 

85-87. 
York, George, Duke of, 432. 



